Overview

LONGLISTED FOR THE GILLER PRIZE 2026 ‘Playful, charming and warm’ SUNDAY TIMES ‘I adored every page’ MAX PORTER ‘A rollicking, wise, superb novel’ INDEPENDENT From the Booker-shortlisted author of The Sisters Brothers comes a thrilling novel about a young man on an amphetamine-fuelled cross-country road trip fleeing the Vietnam draft. 1967, California. Lee Clarke is a strait-laced twenty-three-year-old, happily in love and ambling along at college until an ill-advised fistfight leads to his expulsion. Soon, he receives his draft notice to serve in the Vietnam War, which forces Lee to make the first political decision of his life: he will leave the country and his girlfriend and head for the Canadian border. He signs up at a drive-away car delivery service, chancing into a new Jaguar bound for the East Coast. Carrying only a single suitcase and a bag of amphetamines, Lee knows he can’t go without saying his goodbyes. In four different towns strung out along the US, Lee visits each member of his family: his father, an alcoholic World War Two veteran; his mother, engaged in a buoyantly manic performance with her shut-in sibling; his heartbroken, misanthropic brother Harry; and finally his twin sister, Grace, a brash, young psychiatric nurse-in-training mired in romantic drama. As Lee makes his stimulated progress across the country, his past keeps rising to meet him. He can’t help but wonder, what will his decision to leave mean for his future? A beautiful, sweeping and raucous portrait of a family in disarray and a country in flux, Dodge City confirms deWitt as one of our most brilliant satirists and a novelist of staggering heart. A TIMES MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026 ‘Funny, warm-hearted and beautifully written’ THE TIMES ‘He is a master of arch dialogue’ GUARDIAN ‘A book for anyone who has ever thought their problems could be solved by running away’ NICOLE FLATTERY, author of Nothing Special ‘Fizzing with deadpan dialogue and wry observation … every line is a joy’ DAILY MAIL ‘Electric, funny, and brilliantly written’ JOHN PATRICK McHUGH, author of Fun and Games ‘A witty, heartfelt ride. Dodge City is a supreme delight’ JAMI ATTENBERG, author of All This Could Be Yours ‘A portrait of both a family and a nation in crisis’ FINANCIAL TIMES ‘Lee’s charm as a character is his Bartleby-like refusal to countenance objections to his objection’ NEW YORK TIMES

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9780008849146

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Reviews

‘Funny, warm-hearted and beautifully written; we can imagine the Coen brothers immediately turning it into a movie’ The Times ‘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 ‘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 ‘Blessed with deWitt's lively, clipped, and surprising dialogue … [A] hero's journey that interrogates the very meaning of life’ Booklist ‘A lively on-the-road novel with lighthearted – and existential – moments’ Kirkus Reviews ‘Keenly observed and wryly humorous … DeWitt's elegiac novel is good company for dark days’ Publishers Weekly

Praise for Dodge City: ‘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 ‘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. There is romance here, there is a quiet heart that will knock you sideways, there is a family that will make you queasy in all their complexities and realness’ John Patrick McHugh, author of Fun and Games ‘Reader, I understand that I’m supposed to entice you with a comparison like “what if Hal Ashby directed a Charles Portis book” but what’s troubling me is that Dodge City appears to be an instance of a perfect novel, which by my account is a thing a novel is never allowed to be, especially one that is poised like this on the knife’s edge of hilarity and tenderness. So I’d better read it again and find some flaw and get back to you’ Jonathan Lethem, author of Brooklyn Crime Novel ‘Blessed with deWitt's lively, clipped, and surprising dialogue … [A] hero's journey that interrogates the very meaning of life’ Booklist ‘A lively on-the-road novel with lighthearted – and existential – moments’ Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Dodge City: ‘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 ‘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. There is romance here, there is a quiet heart that will knock you sideways, there is a family that will make you queasy in all their complexities and realness’ John Patrick McHugh, author of Fun and Games ‘Reader, I understand that I’m supposed to entice you with a comparison like “what if Hal Ashby directed a Charles Portis book” but what’s troubling me is that Dodge City appears to be an instance of a perfect novel, which by my account is a thing a novel is never allowed to be, especially one that is poised like this on the knife’s edge of hilarity and tenderness. So I’d better read it again and find some flaw and get back to you’ Jonathan Lethem, author of Brooklyn Crime Novel

Praise for Dodge City: ‘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 ‘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. There is romance here, there is a quiet heart that will knock you sideways, there is a family that will make you queasy in all their complexities and realness’ 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 ‘Reader, I understand that I’m supposed to entice you with a comparison like “what if Hal Ashby directed a Charles Portis book” but what’s troubling me is that Dodge City appears to be an instance of a perfect novel, which by my account is a thing a novel is never allowed to be, especially one that is poised like this on the knife’s edge of hilarity and tenderness. So I’d better read it again and find some flaw and get back to you’ Jonathan Lethem, author of Brooklyn Crime Novel ‘Blessed with deWitt's lively, clipped, and surprising dialogue … [A] hero's journey that interrogates the very meaning of life’ Booklist ‘A lively on-the-road novel with lighthearted – and existential – moments’ Kirkus Reviews

Author Information

Patrick deWitt is the author of six novels including The Sisters Brothers, which won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Governor General Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2011. Born in British Columbia, Canada, he now resides in Portland, Oregon.

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