The Lincoln Highway’s protagonist is 18-year-old Emmett Watson, whose life is permanently altered when a thrown punch accidentally and subsequently becomes a lethal blow.

Raised in the shadow of his father’s failed attempts to eke out life as a farmer in rural Nebraska, his family abandoned by his mother at the age of eight, all of Emmett’s extended family members, who he has never met, are back in Boston, where his mother and father lived until moving to Nebraska. Though he has largely dismissed thoughts of his mother since her sudden departure, he was aware of her unhappiness, and he too dreams of a life off the Watson farm. Emmett is extremely close with his younger brother, Billy, who was only an infant when their mother left and for whom Emmett has accepted a significant amount of responsibility. Emmett’s primary goal before being sent to Salina was to develop a marketable skill that would ensure he would never find himself in the position his father was in. Independently, he learned carpentry and bought himself a car. His intentions at the beginning of the novel are to move with his brother to Texas, where he will use his carpentry skills to infiltrate the property acquisition and home improvement market and start his own business.