From bestselling author Patrick deWitt comes Dodge City, a thrilling novel about a young man on an amphetamine fueled cross-country road trip fleeing the draft for the safe haven of Canada.
1967, California. Lee Clarke is a strait-laced twenty-three-year-old from the small town of Concrete, Washington. He is ambling along at college as the social revolution of the sixties unfolds among his peers, until an ill-advised fistfight leads to his expulsion. Days later, a draft letter lands on his doormat, calling him up to fight in the Vietnam War.
Lee then makes the first political decision of his life: he will leave the country and head for the border.
He kisses his girlfriend for the last time and signs up at a drive-away car delivery service and scores a Jaguar bound for the East Coast. He takes with him only a single suitcase and a bag of amphetamines to speed his course. But Lee knows he can’t slip the country without saying the rest of his goodbyes.
In four different towns strung out along the country, Lee visits each member of his family: his father, a World War Two veteran in a state of degradation; his mother, engaged in a buoyantly manic and never-ending performance with her shut-in sibling; his heartbroken, misanthropic brother Harry; and finally his twin sister Grace, a brash, young nurse-in-training mired in romantic drama at a Manhattan psychiatric hospital. He’s speeding towards his future, and yet the past keeps rising up to meet him. Will he make it across the border the same man as when he started this journey?
A sweeping portrait of a country in flux and a family in disarray, Dodge City is a beautiful and raucous exploration of family, belonging, love and war. Deeply moving and delightfully off-kilter, it confirms deWitt as one of our most brilliant satirists and a novelist of staggering heart.
‘Funny, warm-hearted and beautifully written; we can imagine the Coen brothers immediately turning it into a movie’ The Times
‘A brisk, melancholic road trip novel … Lee’s charm as a character is his Bartleby-like refusal to countenance objections to his objection’ New York Times
‘[A] decadent and daring road novel’ Marie Claire
‘Absolute brilliance ... an episodic reunion fizzing with deadpan dialogue and wry observation … every line is a joy’ Daily Mail
‘The writing is gorgeous and the novel shines with sharp and cutting descriptions … Dodge City is a rollicking, wise, superb novel – and one that offers a warning about drinking the “mythic American tonic”’ Independent
‘All Patrick deWitt’s books are exquisite company, but Dodge City feels like an especially fine and honourable acquaintance to have made. I adored every page of this wise, funny, charming novel’ Max Porter, author of Shy
‘A book for anyone who has ever thought their problems could be solved by running away. Tender, sweet, funny and I think one of deWitt's best’ Nicole Flattery, author of Nothing Special
‘Electric, funny, and brilliantly written: Dodge City is a road trip I wanted to stay on with a cast of characters I wanted to live with for many, many, many more pages’ John Patrick McHugh, author of Fun and Games
‘I was hooked from the first page of Dodge City. Witty, moving, frustrating, rousing, strange, I loved it. I want everyone I know to read it so I have people to talk about it with’ Lou Stoppard, author of Exteriors
‘A witty, heartfelt ride. Dodge City is a supreme delight’ Jami Attenberg, author of All This Could Be Yours
‘A perfect novel … on the knife’s edge of hilarity and tenderness’ Jonathan Lethem, author of Brooklyn Crime Novel
‘Thrilling, moving’ Irish Times
‘A captivating read’ People
‘Blessed with deWitt's lively, clipped, and surprising dialogue … [A] hero's journey that interrogates the very meaning of life’ Booklist
