Emmett Watson

Emmett's perspective is told in the third person. Emmett was raised in Morgen, Nebraska by his father after his mother left. At fifteen he became a carpenter's assistant, purposely avoiding the hazardous weather-dependent nature of farming. After a local troublemaker, Jimmy Snyder taunts him about his father, Emmett punches him and Jimmy later dies after hitting his head in the fall. Emmett admits his guilt at a court hearing, thereby avoiding a trial. Sent to Salina, a Kansas youth facility for eighteen months for the manslaughter of Jimmy Snyder, Emmett is released early on compassionate grounds when his father passes away. Emmett owns a blue 1948 Studebaker Land Cruiser - his absolute pride and joy.

Billy Watson

Emmett's eight year old younger brother. On his father's death he discovers a metal box containing postcards from their estranged mother. He wants to go to San Francisco, where he believes their mother may be living as it was the last place she sent a postcard from. He wants to go via the Lincoln Highway - a highway built in 1912 that runs across America from New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. Billy remembers his mother's love of fireworks and is convinced she will be at the Fourth of July fireworks in Lincoln Park. Billy collects silver dollar coins in an old blue tobacco tin with the portrait of George Washington on it. He carries around a book with him 'Abacus Abernathe's Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers and Other Intrepid Travellers' that he has read many times.

"When it came to rules, Billy wasn't simply an abider. He was a stickler". (Emmett)

Daniel Hewett "Duchess"

Duchess's perspective is told in a first person narrative. Duchess escapes from Salina with a fellow inmate Woolly by slipping into the trunk of the warden's car, which is transporting Emmett home. He has a fascination with masters of deception such as an escape artist named Kazantikis and is fond of embellishment and exaggeration. His dream is to open up his own restaurant. Duchess's father, Harrison Hewett, who was a travelling actor and unscrupulous conman, inspired Duchess's love of performance. When Duchess is eight, Harrison abandons him at St Nicholas's home for boys and later he is framed for theft, leading him to be sent to Salina. After listening to a talk about finances, Duchess adopts the idea of people being in debt to each other through their misdeeds and that "the only way to get a good night's sleep is to balance the accounts'. He uses this to justify his acts of revenge on those he feels have done wrong.

"I love surprises, I love it when life pulls a rabbit out of a hat" (Duchess).

"If you want to understand a man's motivations, all you have to do is ask him 'what would you do with fifty thousand dollars?" (Duchess)

"there is a goodness in him, a goodness that has been there from the beginning, but which has never had the chance to fully flourish" (Sister Agnes)

"He's a loyal friend in his own crazy way...But he is also like one of those guys who are born with no peripheral vision....And that can lead to all kinds of trouble" (Townhouse).

"When it comes to vaudeville, it's all about the setup" (Duchess).

Wallace Wolcott Martin "Woolly"

Woolly's perspective is told in a third person narrative. Raised in a wealthy and well connected family on the Upper East Side, New York, Woolly has had to leave boarding school three times - St Paul's, St Mark's and St Georges. At St. Marks he got so stressed having to use a thesaurus he set fire to it on the football field and the fire spread to the goal posts. At St. Georges, he came across a fire engine and returned it to the station, not realising the firefighters were in the grocery store. This led to them not being able to attend an emergency fire at a stable and consequently Woolly got sent to Salina. His grandfather left him some money in a trust fund but Woolly is declared temporarily unfit to receive it. Woolly's great grandfather puts a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash in a wall safe in the family 'camp', a house in upstate New York, which Duchess and Woolly are hoping to find. Woolly is often slow to understand, acts impulsively without logic, has an addiction to drugs and has simple fascinations, making him vulnerable to exploitation.

"there's something about all that good fortune that can become too much" (Duchess)

"when father accepted his commission the navy, it was Woolly who ended up at sea". (Sarah).

"it seems to me that so many of our lives end up being hampered by a virtue...If you take a trait that by all appearances is a merit....and you give it to some poor soul in abundance, it will almost certainly prove an obstacle to their happiness" (Sarah).

Sarah Witney

One of Woolly's sisters, who understands Woolly's nature and shows him compassion. She is married to Dennis.

"Sarah was the only one in Woolly's family who said she was sorry and meant it."

Ulysses Dixon

A man in his forties who served in the second world war in the 92nd Infantry Division under the Fifth Army in the Italian Campaign. His wife Macie does not forgive him for enlisting and moves away taking their newborn son with her. Ulysses takes to riding freight trains across the country, never settling anywhere and that is how he comes to save Billy from the predatory Pastor John.

"everything of value in this life must be earned...one should also earn the right to hope" (Ulysses).

Townhouse

An inmate at Salina who was persuaded by Duchess to sneak out one night to see a movie. Duchess unwittingly hitched as ride home with an off-duty cop which led to Townhouse getting caught and publicly beaten by Warden Ackerly.

Mr Ransom

Ranch owner and long-standing neighbour of the Watsons, takes Billy into his care after Charlie Watson dies and Emmett gets sent to Salina.

Sally Ransom

Mr Ransom's daughter, who lost her mother aged twelve. She prides herself on caring for others, especially the Watson brothers and likes to take time to do things properly.

"Kindness begins where necessity ends" (Sally)

Professor Abacus Abernathe

The author of Billy's beloved book. Abacus (formerly known as Sam) developed a childhood interest in shipwrecks, which lead to an interest in explorers. He is inspired by his meeting with Billy to meet Ulysses and go and have an adventure of his own.

"How easily we forget - we in the business of storytelling - that life was the point all along" (Abacus)

Charlie Watson

Emmett and Billy's father, an unsuccessful farmer who dies of cancer leaving behind debts, which cause the bank to repossess the family home, leaving his sons homeless. Came to Nebraska from Boston in 1933. Leaves Emmett a note of apology, a torn page from Ralph Waldo Emerson's Essays and three thousand dollars, hidden in the trunk of Emmett's car.

Jimmy Snyder

Killed by a fall following a punch from Emmett.

"In his seventeen years, he was the engineer of a lifetime of shit piles" (Mr Ransom)

"He liked running people down whether he knew them or not"

Warden Ackerly

A warden at Salina who is inclined to beating the young men with his stick.

Atonement

Emmett does not feel that his debt to society can ever be paid in full, he accepts his sentence and allows Jimmy Snyder's brother (Jacob) to hit him. However, Emmett forgives his father for hiding cash from his creditors, feeling that his father had paid enough with hard labor, disappointment, his marriage and finally his life.

'as a civilised society, we ask that even those who have had an unintended hand in the misfortune of others pay some retribution' (Warden Williams).

"no matter how much chance has played a role, when by your hands you have brought another man's time on earth to its end, to prove to the Almighty that you are worthy of his mercy, that shouldn't take any less than the rest of your life". (Emmett)

"in your time you shall do wrong unto others and others shall do wrong unto you. And these opposing wrongs will become your chains. The wrongs you have done unto others will be bound you in the form of guilt, and the wrongs that others have done unto you in the form of indignation. The teachings of Jesus Christ our saviour are there to free you from both. To free you from your guilt through atonement and from your indignation through forgiveness" (Sister Agnes on the 'Chains of Wrongdoing')

"Ulysses had come to some peace with the sins of the battlefield, recognising them as the sins of a generation. What Ulysses had not come to peace with, what weighed upon his conscience, was his betrayal of his wife".

Injustice

Emmett, Duchess and Woolly are all sent to Salina due to mistakes or misunderstandings rather than deliberate law-breaking. Echoing this, Billy reads 'The Count of Monte Cristo' to Woolly, which recounts the story of Edmund Dantes, convicted of a crime he didn't commit.

Travelling

Billy's book of explorers provides a backdrop to the characters and their different journeys. Emmett and Billy plan one journey but end up going on a completely different one.

Sister Agnes gives Billy a medallion of Christopher, the patron saint of travellers.

The panhandler talks about his time working on the Railroad spending more time in motion than standing still, "that's life in a nutshell, ain't it. Lovin' to go to one place and havin' to got to another.

"Every bit of evidence would suggest that the will to be moving is as old as mankind" (Sarah).

Literary Parallels

Real and mythical characters are intertwined in the book.

Billy recounts how Duchess likened his escape to Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo.

Billy recounts the story of Homer who began his story in the middle (the ninth year of the war) and declares that his adventure can't be written until he's in the middle of it.

Billy explains to Ulysses that he could be named after the Greek hero Ulysses who fought in the Trojan War and that he too could be reunited with his wife and child.

"Wasn't it hard enough in the course of life to distinguish between fact and fancy, between what one witnessed and what one wanted?"

Loss

Many of the characters - Emmett, Billy, Duchess, Woolly, Sally all experience loss of a parent either through death or abandonment.

"once the picture has been framed and hung on a wall, what you see when you look at it closely are all the things that were about to happen. All the un-things. The things that were unanticipated. And unintended. And unreverisble". (Woolly).

The Fourth of July

This date features in the memory of Emmett as the last day they spent with his mother watching fireworks. Woolly also recounts his family celebration led by his great-grandfather where the youngest child over sixteen had to recite the Declaration of Independence.

Christianity

"it was Job who had the oxen, and Noah who had the hammer" (Emmett)

"if ever you need proof that the Bible was written by a man, there you have it. (Sally)

"A good Christian shows compassion toward those who are in difficulty....But an equally important point that Jesus is making is that we do not always get to choose to whom we should show our charity" (Sister Agnes).

"The Good Lord does not call you to your feet with hymns from the cheribim and Gabriel blowing his horn. He calls you to your feet by making you feel alone and forgotten." (Ulysses).