Make Your Selection: The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

In 1954, 18-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he served 15 months for involuntary manslaughter. With his mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed, Emmett intends to pick up his younger brother and head to California to start their lives anew. But two friends from the work farm have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett's future, one that will take them all on a fateful journey to New York City.