Dodge City

Description

LONGLISTED FOR THE GILLER PRIZE 2026

‘I adored every page’ MAX PORTER

‘Warm-hearted and beautifully written’ THE TIMES

‘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

‘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