What do you think?
Dodge City
It’s 1967 in Los Angeles and Lee Clarke has received his draft notice, calling him up to fight in the Vietnam War. A strait-laced, apolitical twenty-three-year-old from Concrete, Washington, Lee is studying at UCLA until a fistfight leads to his expulsion – as well as his removal from the deferment list. The draft notice forces Lee to make the first political decision of his life; and though he’s happy in California, and loves his girlfriend, he will leave the country and head for the border.
He signs up at a drive-away car delivery service, chancing into a showroom-new Jaguar bound for the East Coast. Bringing only a single suitcase and a bag of amphetamines, he makes his stimulated progress against the width of the country, pining for the life he’s left behind, and wondering what his decision will mean for his future.
But he is not just saying goodbye to the country of his birth. In four different towns strung out along the northern United States, Lee visits each member of his immediate 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.
An arresting portrait of a country in flux and a family in disarray, Dodge City represents a signal achievement in an already illustrious body of work by the '21st-century Mark Twain' (Slate). Witty, moving and delightfully off-kilter, deWitt’s sixth novel is a brilliant and raucous exploration of family, country, division and war, from an elegant humorist who never shies from the stranger aspects of human behaviour.
He signs up at a drive-away car delivery service, chancing into a showroom-new Jaguar bound for the East Coast. Bringing only a single suitcase and a bag of amphetamines, he makes his stimulated progress against the width of the country, pining for the life he’s left behind, and wondering what his decision will mean for his future.
But he is not just saying goodbye to the country of his birth. In four different towns strung out along the northern United States, Lee visits each member of his immediate 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.
An arresting portrait of a country in flux and a family in disarray, Dodge City represents a signal achievement in an already illustrious body of work by the '21st-century Mark Twain' (Slate). Witty, moving and delightfully off-kilter, deWitt’s sixth novel is a brilliant and raucous exploration of family, country, division and war, from an elegant humorist who never shies from the stranger aspects of human behaviour.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published September 29, 2026
About the author
Patrick deWitt
26 books2,721 followersPatrick deWitt is the author of the novels French Exit (a national bestseller), The Sisters Brothers (a New York Times bestseller short-listed for the Booker Prize), and the critically acclaimed Undermajordomo Minor and Ablutions. Born in British Columbia, he now resides in Portland, Oregon.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews
July 7, 2026
It’s 1967, Lee is 23 yrs old living in California, in college, lives at the beach, has a serious girlfriend.
He gets kicked out of college for fighting ( not his fault) and soon after gets a notice that he has been drafted to the Vietnam war.
His plan is to dodge… go to Canada.
He comes from a broken and quirky family ..his parents divorced a twin female sibling and a brother he doesn’t speak to, in different states.
He travels east to visit and say goodbye to each family person before he goes to Canada, and it is quite an undertaking… it is an amphetamine laced journey, the dialogue so quick and entertaining and I really enjoyed this one… a fast read!
Thank you to Netgalley and Ecco for the free ebook in exchange for my honest review!
He gets kicked out of college for fighting ( not his fault) and soon after gets a notice that he has been drafted to the Vietnam war.
His plan is to dodge… go to Canada.
He comes from a broken and quirky family ..his parents divorced a twin female sibling and a brother he doesn’t speak to, in different states.
He travels east to visit and say goodbye to each family person before he goes to Canada, and it is quite an undertaking… it is an amphetamine laced journey, the dialogue so quick and entertaining and I really enjoyed this one… a fast read!
Thank you to Netgalley and Ecco for the free ebook in exchange for my honest review!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
*I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.*
Most road trips are about finding yourself, but in 1967, they were about outrunning the Vietnam War. Dodge City explores the moment when dodging your fears becomes a flight for survival.
Introduction
My brain focused too much on the Vietnam War and the cross-country road trip aspects that I didn't notice until I already started reading that this is a humorous book. To be precise, a dryly humorous story with eccentric characters. The tone is much lighter than what I usually read. While I can appreciate and enjoy a light-hearted story, I oftentimes find myself unengaged by them.
Themes & Characters
Despite the short length of this book, it explores many different themes.
Lee Clarke, who got kicked out of UCLA after an event of violence between himself and another student, received a draft notice sooner than expected. His fistfighting explores the vulnerability of one's origins and how people react differently when their boundaries are crossed. Unlucky, Lee Clarke has his boundaries crossed more than once in this story. His war duty forces him to question how much (military) service a citizen truly owes to its country. Lee Clarke makes his first political decision of his life when he received his draft notice—breaking free from the social systems that forces young men to join the Vietnam war. Instead of overcoming his fears, he tries to flee by having a cross-country road trip. To fight for his independence and free will, he has to abandon his own country.
Lee Clarke isn't the only character who flees from responsibilities. Other characters are caught between love and an uncertain future. Others are haunted by their family history. It portrays America during a time of political and social unrest. In the end, all characters are defined by their behaviours and choices they make.
Outroduction
I was surprised when I finished this book 'cause I expected more. The whole time I was waiting for something spectacular to occur, but it never did. Ultimately, the Vietnam War premise was less emotional than I initially thought. I don't often read light-hearted stories. However, despite my low rating, I still think it's worth checking out for anyone wanting a dryly humorous read that handles heavy themes without becoming overwhelming. It explores themes such as family, love, duty, free will and war.
Thank you NetGalley and Fourth Estate for the advanced reader copy of Dodge City by Patrick deWitt.
StoryGraph review
Started the book: 01. September 2026
Finished the book: 01. September 2026
Wrote the review: 01. September 2026
Most road trips are about finding yourself, but in 1967, they were about outrunning the Vietnam War. Dodge City explores the moment when dodging your fears becomes a flight for survival.
Introduction
My brain focused too much on the Vietnam War and the cross-country road trip aspects that I didn't notice until I already started reading that this is a humorous book. To be precise, a dryly humorous story with eccentric characters. The tone is much lighter than what I usually read. While I can appreciate and enjoy a light-hearted story, I oftentimes find myself unengaged by them.
Themes & Characters
Despite the short length of this book, it explores many different themes.
Lee Clarke, who got kicked out of UCLA after an event of violence between himself and another student, received a draft notice sooner than expected. His fistfighting explores the vulnerability of one's origins and how people react differently when their boundaries are crossed. Unlucky, Lee Clarke has his boundaries crossed more than once in this story. His war duty forces him to question how much (military) service a citizen truly owes to its country. Lee Clarke makes his first political decision of his life when he received his draft notice—breaking free from the social systems that forces young men to join the Vietnam war. Instead of overcoming his fears, he tries to flee by having a cross-country road trip. To fight for his independence and free will, he has to abandon his own country.
Lee Clarke isn't the only character who flees from responsibilities. Other characters are caught between love and an uncertain future. Others are haunted by their family history. It portrays America during a time of political and social unrest. In the end, all characters are defined by their behaviours and choices they make.
Outroduction
I was surprised when I finished this book 'cause I expected more. The whole time I was waiting for something spectacular to occur, but it never did. Ultimately, the Vietnam War premise was less emotional than I initially thought. I don't often read light-hearted stories. However, despite my low rating, I still think it's worth checking out for anyone wanting a dryly humorous read that handles heavy themes without becoming overwhelming. It explores themes such as family, love, duty, free will and war.
Thank you NetGalley and Fourth Estate for the advanced reader copy of Dodge City by Patrick deWitt.
StoryGraph review
Started the book: 01. September 2026
Finished the book: 01. September 2026
Wrote the review: 01. September 2026
Currently Reading
July 26, 2026Let's do the upcoming deWitt!
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Wow, what a wonderful ride!
Follow Lee Clarke, a charming benzedrine-fueled Vietnam draft dodger hightailing for the northern border in a borrowed Jaguar E-type. With deadpan dialogue and beautifully damaged characters, deWitt takes the reader on a high-speed roadshow of family foibles, with each visit revealing another facet of Lee's identity within the funhouse mirror that is American patriotism. Consider me conscripted and ready to throw this book like a grenade at anyone who wants to laugh in the face of mindless power. Oh, and there’s a cute and often funny love story involved, adding yet another layer to the underlying theme of loyalty versus liberation while giving Lee one last chance to do the right thing, whatever that might be.
I loved this book, plain and simple, and will read it again.
Follow Lee Clarke, a charming benzedrine-fueled Vietnam draft dodger hightailing for the northern border in a borrowed Jaguar E-type. With deadpan dialogue and beautifully damaged characters, deWitt takes the reader on a high-speed roadshow of family foibles, with each visit revealing another facet of Lee's identity within the funhouse mirror that is American patriotism. Consider me conscripted and ready to throw this book like a grenade at anyone who wants to laugh in the face of mindless power. Oh, and there’s a cute and often funny love story involved, adding yet another layer to the underlying theme of loyalty versus liberation while giving Lee one last chance to do the right thing, whatever that might be.
I loved this book, plain and simple, and will read it again.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The story takes place in 1967 California during the Vietnam War. The main character is Lee, a young man who gets kicked out of college after a fight, upending his deferment from The Draft. He decides to make a run for Canada to escape it all, selling his car to finance his journey while also signing up with a drive away car service- where he must deliver a Jaguar to a New Jersey destination. His road trip has little detours as he visits with his scattered family before exiting the US. He also left a girlfriend behind, although both felt somewhat unsure and unsettled about the whole thing. The thought of her burrows in his thoughts as he repeatedly tries calling her along the way.
The dialogue is anything but boring; these characters really know how to "talk" intelligently. There's wit and whimsy, but a heavy, gray pall hanging over each of his family member's living situations. As Lee made the rounds visiting his father, mother, brother, and sister at their separate locales, I kept feeling a sense of relief when he drove away from them- like he was the lucky one. This was a thought-provoking read that held my interest.
Thank you to the publisher Ecco who provided an advance reader copy via NetGalley.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
“Each of you has his boundary, his limit, isn’t that so? No matter one’s devotion to spouse or country, there is still the untouchable piece of oneself that must not be encroached upon. You each were pressed to accept that which you could not accept, and you did not accept it.” He looked at Lee. “Sameness named.” Lee’s mother sat considering her brother’s words. “I’ll admit there is some discomfort caused by the naming of the theory. Can it be that I’m hiding the truth of it from myself?”
Longlisted for the 2026 Giller Prize (the author’s fourth longlisting for that Prize- twice going on to be shortlisted).
Canadian-born author Patrick de Witt is best known internationally for his second novel “The Sisters Brothers” (2011) which was shortlisted for the 2011 Booker Prize (and later 2012 Walter Scott Prize), as well as the 2011 Giller Prize (it also won some less well known Canadian Prizes). I found it easy reading, fast paced and tightly written but its violence and knowing humour rather unpleasant.
This is his sixth novel – and the first I have read since and I think shares the same fast-paced, tight writing but was a more enjoyable read.
Set in 1967, the third party protagonist Lee Clarke was at college in California (and a fairly straight-laced student albeit with a complex family), but at the novel’s start has been expelled from college after punching an annoying and verbally aggressive early-hippie (who turned out to be the son of a major donor) and that in turn opens him up for the letter which defines this road-trip novel – a draft notice to serve in the Vietnam war.
Lee, perhaps to his own surprise, reacts almost immediately to realise that he has no intention to serve, and instead aims to head for Canada, leaving his on-off girlfriend, signing up for a drive-away car delivery (which turns out to be a brand new Jaguar) and heading for the border, fuelled by amphetamines.
En route he visits all four of his family members: his father who still lives in the family home, and is barely holding life together as a dog catcher (relying on thefts to fill his quota); his mother who left the family home when he was still young after realising she could no longer live with his father, and who now lives in her maternal family home with her older brother; his close sister, now a psychiatric nurse and having an affair first with a doctor and then a mental patient; and his once domineering brother – with who he has had a grudge since high school.
The novel is distinguished by its extensive quick-fire dialogue and slightly offbeat humour as well as by a deeper layer asking what obligations you have to others (be that lovers, the family unit or – of course in Lee’s case – your country) and at what point do those obligations become too much – no more so than with the closing lines of the novel.
My thanks to Fourth Estate for an ARC via NetGalley
He breathed and stared at the pins; he drew a gently bending line in his mind. He wound up and released the ball, sent it scurrying down the buffed boards, then straightened and stepped back, waiting with no small interest to see how intention stood up against resistless power.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I tend to reiterate this in every deWitt novel I read, but the dialogue is still best in the world. Funny as hell, with no element of causticity. Starting in LA and charting a roadtrip that spans north and then East, Lee checks in with the 4 other members of his family and the haphazard lives they have built while fleeing a draft that is sure to upset his own. Other than his mother, who is new to stability, he finds them all in various states of disaster as old truths and new truths become known.
May 19, 2026
Dodge City, a book about a young man’s encounters with friends, love, and family following his decision to dodge the Vietnam draft, put me in mind of complicated ‘70s movies; it’s Five Easy Pieces meets the Last Detail. It’s a novel featuring the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll of the ‘60s, but sad versions of each. It’s a book about decisions and consequences, destiny and control. A white pill hangover following a crashed party. A single bowling pin waiting to be toppled. I loved it, it’s a beautiful story.
August 11, 2026
3.5 ⭐️
Review of advance copy
The book begins in Los Angeles in 1967 where Lee Clarke, after an expulsion for his college, has received his draft notice to fight in the Vietnam War. He is forced to make the first political decision of his life, and though he is happy with his lifestyle and girlfriend in California he decides to leave the country and heads for the border.
He uses a one way car-delivery service, as indeed I have done myself, but in 1980 and in upstate New York. Taking just a suitcase and a bag of amphetamines, he sets off on a road trip across the country via and separated parents’ houses, and his siblings, who live in various towns that form his route.
deWitt’s writing is as entertaining as ever, and perhaps even more so here, where there isn’t a lot of plot. What results is an enjoyable and witty account, easy to read, so ideal if a break is needed from novels that require more focus.
He uses a one way car-delivery service, as indeed I have done myself, but in 1980 and in upstate New York. Taking just a suitcase and a bag of amphetamines, he sets off on a road trip across the country via and separated parents’ houses, and his siblings, who live in various towns that form his route.
deWitt’s writing is as entertaining as ever, and perhaps even more so here, where there isn’t a lot of plot. What results is an enjoyable and witty account, easy to read, so ideal if a break is needed from novels that require more focus.
October 1, 2026
It’s 1967 and the U.S. is in the thick of the Vietnam War. Lee was a college student at UCLA until he was expelled for getting into a fistfight with another student. Unfortunately, being kicked out of school means he’s no longer on the draft deferment list, so while he plans to enroll in community college, he gets his draft notice before he can do that.
Lee isn’t a conscientious objector or anything, but he doesn’t believe the U.S. should be fighting in Vietnam. And he certainly doesn’t want to go to war. But he can’t imagine convincing the draft board that he’s crazy or gay or otherwise unsuitable to serve. So he decides he’s going to flee to Canada.
Leaving Los Angeles means leaving his girlfriend Cal behind. Their relationship is an odd one, and Lee has always been reluctant to let Cal know the full extent of his feelings for her. But he decides to leave anyway, and lands a gig delivering a fancy new Jaguar across the country. He’s ultimately supposed to wind up in New Jersey with the car, even though that’s not what he intends to do.
Before he heads to Canada, Lee decides to stop in four places to see the members of his family. He returns to his hometown in Washington to see his father, who is rapidly heading down the road to self-destruction. Then he heads to Billings, Montana, where his mother moved when she divorced his father. She currently lives with her brother in their childhood home, and isn’t shy about sharing her opinions or her versions of memories.
He reluctantly stops in Duluth to see his older brother Harry, whom he hasn’t spoken with in several years. But Harry, too, is in a bad way—dealing with a broken engagement that is his fault and serious financial problems. Lee’s final stop is in NYC, where his twin sister is a nurse-in-training at a psychiatric hospital, and she’s sabotaging her career with her misguided romantic pursuits.
Patrick deWitt is a writer who skillfully blends introspection with humor. This is a thought-provoking story. I expected this would be a little more plot-driven, but I found myself caring what happened to Lee.
See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com.
Follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/getbookedwithlarry/.
Lee isn’t a conscientious objector or anything, but he doesn’t believe the U.S. should be fighting in Vietnam. And he certainly doesn’t want to go to war. But he can’t imagine convincing the draft board that he’s crazy or gay or otherwise unsuitable to serve. So he decides he’s going to flee to Canada.
Leaving Los Angeles means leaving his girlfriend Cal behind. Their relationship is an odd one, and Lee has always been reluctant to let Cal know the full extent of his feelings for her. But he decides to leave anyway, and lands a gig delivering a fancy new Jaguar across the country. He’s ultimately supposed to wind up in New Jersey with the car, even though that’s not what he intends to do.
Before he heads to Canada, Lee decides to stop in four places to see the members of his family. He returns to his hometown in Washington to see his father, who is rapidly heading down the road to self-destruction. Then he heads to Billings, Montana, where his mother moved when she divorced his father. She currently lives with her brother in their childhood home, and isn’t shy about sharing her opinions or her versions of memories.
He reluctantly stops in Duluth to see his older brother Harry, whom he hasn’t spoken with in several years. But Harry, too, is in a bad way—dealing with a broken engagement that is his fault and serious financial problems. Lee’s final stop is in NYC, where his twin sister is a nurse-in-training at a psychiatric hospital, and she’s sabotaging her career with her misguided romantic pursuits.
Patrick deWitt is a writer who skillfully blends introspection with humor. This is a thought-provoking story. I expected this would be a little more plot-driven, but I found myself caring what happened to Lee.
See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com.
Follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/getbookedwithlarry/.
October 4, 2026
Wonderful drug-fueled cross-country, draft-dodging ride of a book. Elegiac at times, tenderly funny at others. Whip-smart dialogue and quirky characters.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
“What’s wrong with cynicism?”
“It’s a dullard’s shortcut.”
from Dodge City by Patrick deWitt
I sped through this short, entertaining novel, propelled by the witty dialogue and delighting in its colorful characters.
After flunking out of college, Lee is immediately drafted and slated to go to Vietnam. But he has other plans. He takes off on a cross country road trip from California to NYC, at once a goodbye tour of his far-flung family, and in the end, an escape to Canada.
Lee leaves behind the free-spirited Cal, separated by distance but not connection. He visits his dad who is on the slippery slope of dysfunction. And his mom, who long ago ditched them for a new life. Then his estranged brother who stole his high school crush, now devastated by a breakup. And last, a sister in NYC, who has made unfortunate choices in love interests.
I had to love this family of losers haunted by bad decisions. They are such fun, are so willingly open about their bad choices, so clever and forgivable.
The road trip’s purpose—-to avoid the draft by leaving the country–sparks debate everywhere Lee goes. His father was in WWII and claims he had a great time. The family remembers it differently, how he started drinking and mistreated Lee.
For all the angst, drugs, and drinking indulged in, the book never becomes a downer. We accept these characters, with all their flaws. After all, who among us hasn’t fallen short now and then?
Another entertaining read from deWitt.
Thanks to Ecco for a free book through NetGalley.
“It’s a dullard’s shortcut.”
from Dodge City by Patrick deWitt
I sped through this short, entertaining novel, propelled by the witty dialogue and delighting in its colorful characters.
After flunking out of college, Lee is immediately drafted and slated to go to Vietnam. But he has other plans. He takes off on a cross country road trip from California to NYC, at once a goodbye tour of his far-flung family, and in the end, an escape to Canada.
Lee leaves behind the free-spirited Cal, separated by distance but not connection. He visits his dad who is on the slippery slope of dysfunction. And his mom, who long ago ditched them for a new life. Then his estranged brother who stole his high school crush, now devastated by a breakup. And last, a sister in NYC, who has made unfortunate choices in love interests.
I had to love this family of losers haunted by bad decisions. They are such fun, are so willingly open about their bad choices, so clever and forgivable.
The road trip’s purpose—-to avoid the draft by leaving the country–sparks debate everywhere Lee goes. His father was in WWII and claims he had a great time. The family remembers it differently, how he started drinking and mistreated Lee.
For all the angst, drugs, and drinking indulged in, the book never becomes a downer. We accept these characters, with all their flaws. After all, who among us hasn’t fallen short now and then?
Another entertaining read from deWitt.
Thanks to Ecco for a free book through NetGalley.
September 10, 2026
3.25
Story follows Lee, a young man who has been drafted for war and his attempt to flee from the action. We go with him as he visits all of his family, mending their relationships along the way
I really like this book and I would consider this rating high for a lit-fic. I liked how his relationships with his family was actually thought out and took time to heal. I also liked how not everyone was supportive of what he was doing which made the characters seem that much realer.
The only thing I didn’t really like was how at the beginning of the book the characters seemed a bit flat.
Story follows Lee, a young man who has been drafted for war and his attempt to flee from the action. We go with him as he visits all of his family, mending their relationships along the way
I really like this book and I would consider this rating high for a lit-fic. I liked how his relationships with his family was actually thought out and took time to heal. I also liked how not everyone was supportive of what he was doing which made the characters seem that much realer.
The only thing I didn’t really like was how at the beginning of the book the characters seemed a bit flat.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
Dodge City follows Lee Clark in 1967 as he receives his draft notice to serve in the Vietnam War. Lee is only twenty-three and he understandably doesn’t want to fight in a war so he decides to dodge the draft by leaving America and heads to the Canadian border but this does mean leaving his girlfriend behind. He gets a Jaguar to travel in from a drive-away delivery service and takes some amphetamines to stay awake. As Lee travels across the US to get to the Canadian border, he decides to meet up with his family members. Lee meets his father, who is an alcoholic WWII veteran who is not doing well and has strong views on fighting for the country. He meets up with his mother, who lives with her brother after leaving Lee’s father years ago. He sees his brother, Harry, who he doesn’t get along with and is reluctant to visit and his sister, Grace, who is a psychiatric nurse-in-training and very supportive of Lee. As Lee travels across the US he thinks about the draft, what it means to leave his girlfriend and what the future will have in store for him in Canada.
I really enjoyed this book and I will be recommending this. I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy this but this quickly pulled me in and I read this in a matter of hours. I easily connected with Lee and understood why he wanted to dodge the draft. There are some really good conversations in this around war and who wants to fight. The older generation in this book (Lee’s dad and mother) believe in fighting for your country and cannot understand why Lee doesn’t want to go. Whereas Lee just doesn’t understand the need to go to another country and kill strangers. Whilst the topic of this book is dark due to it being about war, there is a humorous tone throughout and in that respect, the tone of this book reminded me of Early Sobrieties by Michael Deagler. This book is written well and quickly grabs your attention. I had a really good time reading this and I think this is an important read especially for today’s times when conversations around patriotism arise and what it means to serve your country. I’m giving this 4.5 stars rounded up to a 5.
Favourite quote - “Okay, but don’t you think it’s weird that they expect us to go over there and murder strangers?” “You want to get to know them first? Play canasta? Don’t forget that the strangers are trying to murder you.” “Don’t you think that’s weird?” “I think it’s unfortunate. But that’s just the way it goes, isn’t that right?” “Is it?” “Yes, it is. That’s the way it’s always gone and will always go. Cavemen went to war, and so will spacemen. It’s just a part of the male American experience. And if you leave your country, that’s your business, but as soon as you step over that line, you’ll be losing a piece of yourself you won’t get back.”
Dodge City follows Lee Clark in 1967 as he receives his draft notice to serve in the Vietnam War. Lee is only twenty-three and he understandably doesn’t want to fight in a war so he decides to dodge the draft by leaving America and heads to the Canadian border but this does mean leaving his girlfriend behind. He gets a Jaguar to travel in from a drive-away delivery service and takes some amphetamines to stay awake. As Lee travels across the US to get to the Canadian border, he decides to meet up with his family members. Lee meets his father, who is an alcoholic WWII veteran who is not doing well and has strong views on fighting for the country. He meets up with his mother, who lives with her brother after leaving Lee’s father years ago. He sees his brother, Harry, who he doesn’t get along with and is reluctant to visit and his sister, Grace, who is a psychiatric nurse-in-training and very supportive of Lee. As Lee travels across the US he thinks about the draft, what it means to leave his girlfriend and what the future will have in store for him in Canada.
I really enjoyed this book and I will be recommending this. I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy this but this quickly pulled me in and I read this in a matter of hours. I easily connected with Lee and understood why he wanted to dodge the draft. There are some really good conversations in this around war and who wants to fight. The older generation in this book (Lee’s dad and mother) believe in fighting for your country and cannot understand why Lee doesn’t want to go. Whereas Lee just doesn’t understand the need to go to another country and kill strangers. Whilst the topic of this book is dark due to it being about war, there is a humorous tone throughout and in that respect, the tone of this book reminded me of Early Sobrieties by Michael Deagler. This book is written well and quickly grabs your attention. I had a really good time reading this and I think this is an important read especially for today’s times when conversations around patriotism arise and what it means to serve your country. I’m giving this 4.5 stars rounded up to a 5.
Favourite quote - “Okay, but don’t you think it’s weird that they expect us to go over there and murder strangers?” “You want to get to know them first? Play canasta? Don’t forget that the strangers are trying to murder you.” “Don’t you think that’s weird?” “I think it’s unfortunate. But that’s just the way it goes, isn’t that right?” “Is it?” “Yes, it is. That’s the way it’s always gone and will always go. Cavemen went to war, and so will spacemen. It’s just a part of the male American experience. And if you leave your country, that’s your business, but as soon as you step over that line, you’ll be losing a piece of yourself you won’t get back.”
August 11, 2026
A fantastic book of character, moral, and the importance of family. I really loved this, Lee was a fun character to centre the story on. His narrative was entertaining and at times, a little unreliable, which made the whole thing more enjoyable. My particular favourite was his sister Grace, who I would have happily read an entire book about. A really great novel.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for kindly providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. #DodgeCity #NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for kindly providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. #DodgeCity #NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
June 24, 2026
Ok I loved this.
I am so thankful to Ecco Books, Patrick DeWitt, and NetGalley for advanced access to this hist. fic, existential nightmare that had me thanking my lucky stars I was born in the mid-aughts.
Lee Clarke has just received his draft letter for the Vietnam war and he’s not anticipating it. Like hey, how about no? Instead of staying back in LA to fight the good fight or following the government’s insistence on serving his country and fighting communism, he travels across the country to become an Ex pat of sorts.
Along the way, he pays visits to the kooky, misplaced members of his family who all seem to be experiencing more radically insane life events that allow Lee to vicariously dissociate a bit, while he mourns his loss of autonomy.
So excited for this one to hit shelves on September 29, 2026.
I am so thankful to Ecco Books, Patrick DeWitt, and NetGalley for advanced access to this hist. fic, existential nightmare that had me thanking my lucky stars I was born in the mid-aughts.
Lee Clarke has just received his draft letter for the Vietnam war and he’s not anticipating it. Like hey, how about no? Instead of staying back in LA to fight the good fight or following the government’s insistence on serving his country and fighting communism, he travels across the country to become an Ex pat of sorts.
Along the way, he pays visits to the kooky, misplaced members of his family who all seem to be experiencing more radically insane life events that allow Lee to vicariously dissociate a bit, while he mourns his loss of autonomy.
So excited for this one to hit shelves on September 29, 2026.
August 25, 2026
THANK YOU to the lovely people at 4th estate for sending me this proof to read! I’m so grateful for the opportunity to even receive a proof in the first place :)
In this book we follow a character named Lee in 1960s California. He has just received his draft notice for the Vietnam war and he makes a the first political message in his life to uproot his entire life and leave everything behind, including his beloved girlfriend, to escape California to the Canadian border.
Throughout the book we follow Lee journey and interactions with his family such as his dad, mum, brother and sister and different all of there dynamics are. I found myself utterly entranced by every single character within this book and the demonstration of real life struggles to be the heart of this book. From Lee’s dad’s issues regarding alcohol to the difficult relationship ship he has with his brother.
I found this book very easy to read and addictive that I just wanted to read it constantly. If a book regarding family dynamics is interesting to you this is definitely something that you should read because this was utterly amazing. I’m definitely going to read more of Patrick DeWitt’s works. I am obsessed.
In this book we follow a character named Lee in 1960s California. He has just received his draft notice for the Vietnam war and he makes a the first political message in his life to uproot his entire life and leave everything behind, including his beloved girlfriend, to escape California to the Canadian border.
Throughout the book we follow Lee journey and interactions with his family such as his dad, mum, brother and sister and different all of there dynamics are. I found myself utterly entranced by every single character within this book and the demonstration of real life struggles to be the heart of this book. From Lee’s dad’s issues regarding alcohol to the difficult relationship ship he has with his brother.
I found this book very easy to read and addictive that I just wanted to read it constantly. If a book regarding family dynamics is interesting to you this is definitely something that you should read because this was utterly amazing. I’m definitely going to read more of Patrick DeWitt’s works. I am obsessed.
October 1, 2026
3.75/5
About a man in his early 20s, Lee, who decides to 'dodge' the draft by fleeing the country, 'Dodge City' toes the line between melancholic desolation and youthful hope beautifully. While the overall tone of this book is quite sombre and bleak, I enjoyed how there was an underlying theme of hope within Lee himself as he travels across the country and reconnects with his family members, some he connects to more than othes.
It was interesting how even though we don't see them as a family unit while Lee was growing up, the book reveals how they all have different perspectives of their time together as a family, and even Lee comes across as an unreliable narrator.
I feel like this is a story that can mean a lot of different things for different readers, but for me, it was a story about personal realisation, the complexity of family, and the hope people deserve to have in the people around them. Relationships, particularly romantic and family ones, are at the core of what makes a person and I feel like this story really captured the significance of family and community in shaping one's character.
Thank you @netgalley and @4thestate for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!
About a man in his early 20s, Lee, who decides to 'dodge' the draft by fleeing the country, 'Dodge City' toes the line between melancholic desolation and youthful hope beautifully. While the overall tone of this book is quite sombre and bleak, I enjoyed how there was an underlying theme of hope within Lee himself as he travels across the country and reconnects with his family members, some he connects to more than othes.
It was interesting how even though we don't see them as a family unit while Lee was growing up, the book reveals how they all have different perspectives of their time together as a family, and even Lee comes across as an unreliable narrator.
I feel like this is a story that can mean a lot of different things for different readers, but for me, it was a story about personal realisation, the complexity of family, and the hope people deserve to have in the people around them. Relationships, particularly romantic and family ones, are at the core of what makes a person and I feel like this story really captured the significance of family and community in shaping one's character.
Thank you @netgalley and @4thestate for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Read
September 24, 2026I always know exactly how a Patrick deWitt novel will sound and feel (complimentary). His characters have a way of speaking that is both direct and meandering, which is especially suitable for this story about a young man on the precipice of the unknown. He's taking charge of his fate - or at least he's not going to let the US government have control of it - but he's still uncertain how his "intention [will stand] up against resistless power." What shape will his future take?
I found many of the characters in this book to be unsettling - they lived in a way that seemed both emotionally detached from life, while also emotionally frantic. It is a timbre that I associate with certain mid-century novels, though I can't think of good example. I was always relieved when Lee left a family member behind and was back on the road. I hope that his new life contains a bit more color and connection than the one he left behind!
Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley via Edelweiss.
I found many of the characters in this book to be unsettling - they lived in a way that seemed both emotionally detached from life, while also emotionally frantic. It is a timbre that I associate with certain mid-century novels, though I can't think of good example. I was always relieved when Lee left a family member behind and was back on the road. I hope that his new life contains a bit more color and connection than the one he left behind!
Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley via Edelweiss.
October 6, 2026
Although not Dewitt's most adventurous book, Dodge City is still hugely entertaining. The format is simple - our main character takes a road trip to dodge the vietnam draft, and stops to see different family members along the way. This plays to the author's strengths of creating eccentric personalities and farcical situations. I wouldn't say this was my favourite Dewitt story but I absolutely sped through it to keep up with the lives of such charming characters. He writes so well that it's an absolute pleasure to read his work. No page is a drag and the dialogue was fantastic as always.
September 17, 2026
4.25⭐️
a very fast-paced, unflinching book. the dialogue was one of the highlights for me; staccato and succinct, yet revealing and compelling, Patrick deWitt’s conversational style has its own dynamic pulse. didn’t want to put this one down—it had me sat in my car reading for half an hour after a nine hour shift, pushing my paid-for parking ticket right to the final minute!
a very fast-paced, unflinching book. the dialogue was one of the highlights for me; staccato and succinct, yet revealing and compelling, Patrick deWitt’s conversational style has its own dynamic pulse. didn’t want to put this one down—it had me sat in my car reading for half an hour after a nine hour shift, pushing my paid-for parking ticket right to the final minute!
October 1, 2026
Excellent as always! I’m a true fan of his writing.
June 22, 2026
Thank you to Greenlight Bookstore for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Set in the 1960s. Starts with Lee in college and receiving a draft notice for the Vietnam War. Lee decides to go on the run,Which leads to a road trip through America. During his trip he tries making right with his decision to flee to Canada. He decides to stop and visit family members .Everyone in Lee's life opposes his decision. We learn how each family member has made their own choice to flee some type of responsibility and see those reflections. A Character driven novel with family trauma reading sometimes dark, sometimes humorous and sometimes emotional but always at a steadily pace.
Set in the 1960s. Starts with Lee in college and receiving a draft notice for the Vietnam War. Lee decides to go on the run,Which leads to a road trip through America. During his trip he tries making right with his decision to flee to Canada. He decides to stop and visit family members .Everyone in Lee's life opposes his decision. We learn how each family member has made their own choice to flee some type of responsibility and see those reflections. A Character driven novel with family trauma reading sometimes dark, sometimes humorous and sometimes emotional but always at a steadily pace.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
A different kind of Odyssey for the summer of '26 I guess.
I received a copy from a goodreads giveaway. I'd give this 3.5 stars, if I could. It was enjoyable but it felt to me like it didn't quite get there. I think there was a bit of explaining what the reader should be inferring which seems to be common these days.
I received a copy from a goodreads giveaway. I'd give this 3.5 stars, if I could. It was enjoyable but it felt to me like it didn't quite get there. I think there was a bit of explaining what the reader should be inferring which seems to be common these days.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
You had to be there.
Which is to say, the America of the late ’60s, when the country was rent by a war even more divisive than the one today and we were all being assailed nightly on the TV news by the ever-increasing body count from the quagmire which Life magazine brought to front-page attention with a special edition of pictures of all the American soldiers killed over there in a single week and, more immediately for me, an ROTC acquaintance of mine, his new bars freshly anointing his Army greens, lost his life almost as soon as he set foot over there and another acquaintance of mine, a fellow lieutenant in a noncombat specialty, also “made the ultimate sacrifice,” as it’s euphemistically put, in that distant place, and, literally on my doorstep, a high-strung college roommate of mine, perhaps the unlikeliest candidate ever for donning uniform, had to get up in the middle of the night to catch a train to Chicago for a draft physical, which fortunately and only rightly disqualified him for service for I forget exactly what medical reason.
Such was the tumultuous world into which Lee Clarke, the hapless protagonist of Patrick DeWitt’s unsettling but not humorless new novel, awakens on the day when he finds awaiting him in his mailbox his draft notice, which, he mentally remarks, with its “greeting” salutation lacking even a more welcoming “s” at the end of the word, was “intended to resound in the mind’s ear as the voice of a truth one could not ever get away from: artless, spare, with no trace of comradeship.”
This despite his having been given to think by his draft officer that even though he has lost his deferment after being expelled from school for fighting, some accommodation might be made were he to re-enroll at another school within a prescribed time.
A situation Lee looks to immediately set to rights, enrolling at another institution almost as soon as the communication arrives, but, alas, even with proof of school registration squarely in hand, he’s told by his draft officer, a Mr. Dewey, that while, yes, it’s “strange” that the Selective Service had come calling as soon as it did (though he won’t go so far as to acknowledge a mistake had been made), there’s nothing to be done about it, the “machinery” is far enough along that he’ll almost certainly have to suit up and, yes, no doubt end up in Vietnam.
Indeed, the whole ambience of Dewey’s office, with its “lone aesthetic gesture” being an image on the wall of a “heroic eagle, descending from above in what looked to be a rage of activated patriotism (with) talons … blood-dipped, a fresh kill in (its) immediate past,” is uninviting of any sentiment disinclined toward “patriotic gore,” to use a phrase.
No quarter, at any rate, to be found there, where a banner unfurled about the eagle’s lower body reading “to a man, free” would seem to leave as the only logical choice for Lee to head for Canada, an option greeted with varying reactions by his family members as he sets out on a final odyssey before doing whatever he will end up doing, the first stop being his divorced father, whom Lee had never admired but always liked and who has fallen on hard times, having been reduced to dog-catching.
And while he is not overtly hostile to Lee’s intention, he cannot in good faith embrace it, having, as he puts it, with his own military service in World War II, “paid his way” to “hold my head up in the “United States of America,” his service having come at a time when, as he puts it, conscientious objectors were viewed in the same category as child molesters and religious freaks.
No cutting and running then, he declares, casting such behavior – getting out of Dodge, as it were – as “your generation’s contribution to the culture.”
Less resistant to Lee’s stated intention is his sister, who is having issues of her own with an affair with a married doctor, and his mother, whose abandonment of her marriage was what set his father on his downward course – “the cord connecting him to his duties was severed,” notes Lee in Robert Stone-like prose, and “his devolution commenced” – and in particular her brother, with whom she has been staying, and who among the family is most approving of Lee’s look northward for sanctuary, his greeting to Lee being to ask if he is “feeling waves of great bitterness at the lunatic machinery of mankind pulling you into its grim mechanisms in opposition to your wishes and against the common-sense morals of mother nature.”
Indeed, he finds Lee’s likely course of action a “romantic crime” -- “freedom at all costs and hang the consequences!”
A disquisition of sorts on war and patriotism, then, DeWitt’s novel, and delivered, as I say, in Robert Stone-like prose, making for a particularly absorbing read for me, with my own background, and coming at a time when, speaking of lunacy, the current holder of the nation’s highest office, without ever having served a day himself in uniform, indeed having used the available medical stratagems of the day to avoid it, has been banging the drums of war while professing no understanding of why service members would give their lives for something greater than themselves and even moved to prosecute veterans solely for advocating that soldiers not follow the sort of illegal orders that, to cite an especially egregious and relevant instance, made for the massacre at My Lai, which author William Styron cited as a symbol of the “moral degeneracy and criminal nature” of the Vietnam war.
Quite the thing to come to age on, at any rate, that fractured time, for me as well as Lee, and ably reconstructed in DeWitt’s fine novel, with its only possible fault for me being its conclusion, even if right offhand I can’t think what would have made for a more satisfying ending for me.
Which is to say, the America of the late ’60s, when the country was rent by a war even more divisive than the one today and we were all being assailed nightly on the TV news by the ever-increasing body count from the quagmire which Life magazine brought to front-page attention with a special edition of pictures of all the American soldiers killed over there in a single week and, more immediately for me, an ROTC acquaintance of mine, his new bars freshly anointing his Army greens, lost his life almost as soon as he set foot over there and another acquaintance of mine, a fellow lieutenant in a noncombat specialty, also “made the ultimate sacrifice,” as it’s euphemistically put, in that distant place, and, literally on my doorstep, a high-strung college roommate of mine, perhaps the unlikeliest candidate ever for donning uniform, had to get up in the middle of the night to catch a train to Chicago for a draft physical, which fortunately and only rightly disqualified him for service for I forget exactly what medical reason.
Such was the tumultuous world into which Lee Clarke, the hapless protagonist of Patrick DeWitt’s unsettling but not humorless new novel, awakens on the day when he finds awaiting him in his mailbox his draft notice, which, he mentally remarks, with its “greeting” salutation lacking even a more welcoming “s” at the end of the word, was “intended to resound in the mind’s ear as the voice of a truth one could not ever get away from: artless, spare, with no trace of comradeship.”
This despite his having been given to think by his draft officer that even though he has lost his deferment after being expelled from school for fighting, some accommodation might be made were he to re-enroll at another school within a prescribed time.
A situation Lee looks to immediately set to rights, enrolling at another institution almost as soon as the communication arrives, but, alas, even with proof of school registration squarely in hand, he’s told by his draft officer, a Mr. Dewey, that while, yes, it’s “strange” that the Selective Service had come calling as soon as it did (though he won’t go so far as to acknowledge a mistake had been made), there’s nothing to be done about it, the “machinery” is far enough along that he’ll almost certainly have to suit up and, yes, no doubt end up in Vietnam.
Indeed, the whole ambience of Dewey’s office, with its “lone aesthetic gesture” being an image on the wall of a “heroic eagle, descending from above in what looked to be a rage of activated patriotism (with) talons … blood-dipped, a fresh kill in (its) immediate past,” is uninviting of any sentiment disinclined toward “patriotic gore,” to use a phrase.
No quarter, at any rate, to be found there, where a banner unfurled about the eagle’s lower body reading “to a man, free” would seem to leave as the only logical choice for Lee to head for Canada, an option greeted with varying reactions by his family members as he sets out on a final odyssey before doing whatever he will end up doing, the first stop being his divorced father, whom Lee had never admired but always liked and who has fallen on hard times, having been reduced to dog-catching.
And while he is not overtly hostile to Lee’s intention, he cannot in good faith embrace it, having, as he puts it, with his own military service in World War II, “paid his way” to “hold my head up in the “United States of America,” his service having come at a time when, as he puts it, conscientious objectors were viewed in the same category as child molesters and religious freaks.
No cutting and running then, he declares, casting such behavior – getting out of Dodge, as it were – as “your generation’s contribution to the culture.”
Less resistant to Lee’s stated intention is his sister, who is having issues of her own with an affair with a married doctor, and his mother, whose abandonment of her marriage was what set his father on his downward course – “the cord connecting him to his duties was severed,” notes Lee in Robert Stone-like prose, and “his devolution commenced” – and in particular her brother, with whom she has been staying, and who among the family is most approving of Lee’s look northward for sanctuary, his greeting to Lee being to ask if he is “feeling waves of great bitterness at the lunatic machinery of mankind pulling you into its grim mechanisms in opposition to your wishes and against the common-sense morals of mother nature.”
Indeed, he finds Lee’s likely course of action a “romantic crime” -- “freedom at all costs and hang the consequences!”
A disquisition of sorts on war and patriotism, then, DeWitt’s novel, and delivered, as I say, in Robert Stone-like prose, making for a particularly absorbing read for me, with my own background, and coming at a time when, speaking of lunacy, the current holder of the nation’s highest office, without ever having served a day himself in uniform, indeed having used the available medical stratagems of the day to avoid it, has been banging the drums of war while professing no understanding of why service members would give their lives for something greater than themselves and even moved to prosecute veterans solely for advocating that soldiers not follow the sort of illegal orders that, to cite an especially egregious and relevant instance, made for the massacre at My Lai, which author William Styron cited as a symbol of the “moral degeneracy and criminal nature” of the Vietnam war.
Quite the thing to come to age on, at any rate, that fractured time, for me as well as Lee, and ably reconstructed in DeWitt’s fine novel, with its only possible fault for me being its conclusion, even if right offhand I can’t think what would have made for a more satisfying ending for me.
October 4, 2026
DODGE CITY, Patrick deWitt’s wryly observant new novel, begins when an unwelcome and unexpected draft notice slips through Lee Clarke’s mail slot one “neutral, blinding day in Southern California.”
Lee has expected to avoid military service. Until recently, he’d been enrolled at UCLA, but he was expelled after what he calls “an event of violence.” (He punched an annoying and self-satisfied fellow student, who unfortunately happened to be the son of a major donor.) He planned to enroll in community college to maintain his deferment, but unfortunately, “the machine moved with superior speed.”
Now, Lee is staring down a stint in Vietnam and realizing he very much does not want to die for his country. Nor does he want to leave his beautiful but emotionally distant girlfriend, Cal. Like a stray cat, she drifts in and out of his life without explanation.
With his induction date looming, Lee considers his options. Faking insanity or homosexuality won’t work --- he knows he can’t “muster one of these life or death performances.” It’s too late for marriage, and he dismisses the idea of conscientious objection out of hand. Conversations with his draft officer are amusingly Kafka-esque; clearly, there’s no relief to be found in impersonal bureaucracy. Fleeing to Canada seems to be the only choice. Lee lands a gig with a driveway car delivery company, hired to pilot a pristine Jaguar from the West Coast to New Jersey.
Thus begins Lee’s chaotic, revealing, often funny and amphetamine-fueled journey across the United States. His ultimate plan is to cross the Canadian border somewhere north of New York City. But before then, he has a few loose ends to tie up, including a stop in his hometown of Concrete, Washington (a place as depressing as it sounds) to see his alcoholic father, as well as visits with his mother and uncle in Montana, his estranged older brother in Duluth, and his twin sister in New York City.
Lee’s trip turns out to be as entertaining, and at times sobering, as it is illuminating. He finds his father living in squalor and dognapping other people’s pets in order to meet his quota as a dog catcher. His mother --- who speaks in an oddly formal register and abruptly fled the family when he was a teen --- is living a strange and isolated (though not unhappy) life with her “eccentric” sibling. Lee’s brother, Harry, is calling in bomb threats for kicks when he’s not getting drunk at the local dive, while Grace is a psychiatric nurse in training having affairs with both her boss and a patient.
Lee the draft dodger comes off as positively stable and rational in this family of misfits. With everyone else’s life cracking up and the country itself falling apart, ditching America altogether makes more and more sense. But Lee can’t shake the feeling that he’s leaving something behind, namely the enigmatic Cal. Is he lusting after a phantom, or is there real love there? It’s hard to say.
The characters and situations that Lee encounters on his picaresque journey are both absurd and moving. The abrupt end of his parents’ marriage is a study in midcentury lower-middle-class malaise. His clever mother reaches her breaking point after years of a stifling, loveless relationship, while his father still can’t figure out why she left. “I thought we were on the same page,” he says. A member of the antiwar movement urges Lee to join a different kind of army, trying to conscript him into a life of protests and pamphleteering. “Are you cool?” he asks after he makes his pitch. “I don’t think I am cool, no,” Lee replies.
The cause might be just, but it’s not for Lee, whose objection to the war is more personal than political. Soon after, he’s contemplating the “vulgar bounty” of an automat, but what he really wants is to be back in his quiet apartment in Venice with Cal, where “a pleasing sadness…came into the air when it rained” and the world outside could be ignored for a little while. The Vietnam War and its particular moral quandaries might be long over, but for those struggling to make sense of our current baffling present, deWitt’s portrait of a man trying to navigate his own untenable and confusing reality will resonate.
Reviewed by Megan Elliott
Lee has expected to avoid military service. Until recently, he’d been enrolled at UCLA, but he was expelled after what he calls “an event of violence.” (He punched an annoying and self-satisfied fellow student, who unfortunately happened to be the son of a major donor.) He planned to enroll in community college to maintain his deferment, but unfortunately, “the machine moved with superior speed.”
Now, Lee is staring down a stint in Vietnam and realizing he very much does not want to die for his country. Nor does he want to leave his beautiful but emotionally distant girlfriend, Cal. Like a stray cat, she drifts in and out of his life without explanation.
With his induction date looming, Lee considers his options. Faking insanity or homosexuality won’t work --- he knows he can’t “muster one of these life or death performances.” It’s too late for marriage, and he dismisses the idea of conscientious objection out of hand. Conversations with his draft officer are amusingly Kafka-esque; clearly, there’s no relief to be found in impersonal bureaucracy. Fleeing to Canada seems to be the only choice. Lee lands a gig with a driveway car delivery company, hired to pilot a pristine Jaguar from the West Coast to New Jersey.
Thus begins Lee’s chaotic, revealing, often funny and amphetamine-fueled journey across the United States. His ultimate plan is to cross the Canadian border somewhere north of New York City. But before then, he has a few loose ends to tie up, including a stop in his hometown of Concrete, Washington (a place as depressing as it sounds) to see his alcoholic father, as well as visits with his mother and uncle in Montana, his estranged older brother in Duluth, and his twin sister in New York City.
Lee’s trip turns out to be as entertaining, and at times sobering, as it is illuminating. He finds his father living in squalor and dognapping other people’s pets in order to meet his quota as a dog catcher. His mother --- who speaks in an oddly formal register and abruptly fled the family when he was a teen --- is living a strange and isolated (though not unhappy) life with her “eccentric” sibling. Lee’s brother, Harry, is calling in bomb threats for kicks when he’s not getting drunk at the local dive, while Grace is a psychiatric nurse in training having affairs with both her boss and a patient.
Lee the draft dodger comes off as positively stable and rational in this family of misfits. With everyone else’s life cracking up and the country itself falling apart, ditching America altogether makes more and more sense. But Lee can’t shake the feeling that he’s leaving something behind, namely the enigmatic Cal. Is he lusting after a phantom, or is there real love there? It’s hard to say.
The characters and situations that Lee encounters on his picaresque journey are both absurd and moving. The abrupt end of his parents’ marriage is a study in midcentury lower-middle-class malaise. His clever mother reaches her breaking point after years of a stifling, loveless relationship, while his father still can’t figure out why she left. “I thought we were on the same page,” he says. A member of the antiwar movement urges Lee to join a different kind of army, trying to conscript him into a life of protests and pamphleteering. “Are you cool?” he asks after he makes his pitch. “I don’t think I am cool, no,” Lee replies.
The cause might be just, but it’s not for Lee, whose objection to the war is more personal than political. Soon after, he’s contemplating the “vulgar bounty” of an automat, but what he really wants is to be back in his quiet apartment in Venice with Cal, where “a pleasing sadness…came into the air when it rained” and the world outside could be ignored for a little while. The Vietnam War and its particular moral quandaries might be long over, but for those struggling to make sense of our current baffling present, deWitt’s portrait of a man trying to navigate his own untenable and confusing reality will resonate.
Reviewed by Megan Elliott
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Lee Clarke is a 23 year old, apolitical student at UCLA. He is cruising through his courses, and happy enough in his space, and has even found contentment in his strange off-kilter relationship with his girlfriend Cal. He, is fairly quiet and studious while his girlfriend hangs with a crowd who are quite wild. Lee doesn't get along with them, so he shares Cal with them and accepts that at times she will come home broken and bereft.
He intends to meet her one night at a party, which is clearly not his normal social crowd and when she doesn't turn up he finds himself set upon in a war of words with an outspoken guest. While he is clearly even to this match, he decides to leave, but notices this man is following him. Lee is not as meek as he seems and puts the contender into the ground before driving home. Sadly this event is the catalyst Lee's change in fortune. The boy's father is a big benefactor of the school and Lee finds himself expelled. Shortly after he receives a drafting notice for the Vietnam war.
Lee doesn't want to go to Vietnam to fight, and instead secures a job with a car delivery service and is assigned a new Jaguar to deliver to New Jersey. This trip sets the backbone of the story in place as Lee travels across the country visiting his family and trying to make sense of his feelings, as well as to that of his family members whom are all facing their own crises.
The key theme in the book is the examination of the a country's right to draw people into war against their will; and what is acceptable as an alternative. It is explored through both his feelings as well as well as through the reactions he receives from his family when he informs them he is looking to flee to Canada. The strongest objector is his father who believes he is unpatriotic and that he should do his duty.
I understand from some googling that DeWitt may have drawn some of the material from his own father who is said to have fled Los Angeles for Vancouver - including the use of a car, and it is a clever and well polished plot, with delightful characters. I am not sure how much I personally love 'on the road' journeys of discovery though. While I understand that the road trip is a vehicle (pun) for the author to expose the underlying thoughts and feelings of the main character and how they interact with others on the way, I am not really interested in the trip itself, the mechanics of eating, sleeping, driving and the scenes of road and rain etc.
I did however adore DeWitt's whimsical touch on the characters and the bizarre nature of family relationships. In this regard DeWitt is brilliant.
He intends to meet her one night at a party, which is clearly not his normal social crowd and when she doesn't turn up he finds himself set upon in a war of words with an outspoken guest. While he is clearly even to this match, he decides to leave, but notices this man is following him. Lee is not as meek as he seems and puts the contender into the ground before driving home. Sadly this event is the catalyst Lee's change in fortune. The boy's father is a big benefactor of the school and Lee finds himself expelled. Shortly after he receives a drafting notice for the Vietnam war.
Lee doesn't want to go to Vietnam to fight, and instead secures a job with a car delivery service and is assigned a new Jaguar to deliver to New Jersey. This trip sets the backbone of the story in place as Lee travels across the country visiting his family and trying to make sense of his feelings, as well as to that of his family members whom are all facing their own crises.
The key theme in the book is the examination of the a country's right to draw people into war against their will; and what is acceptable as an alternative. It is explored through both his feelings as well as well as through the reactions he receives from his family when he informs them he is looking to flee to Canada. The strongest objector is his father who believes he is unpatriotic and that he should do his duty.
I understand from some googling that DeWitt may have drawn some of the material from his own father who is said to have fled Los Angeles for Vancouver - including the use of a car, and it is a clever and well polished plot, with delightful characters. I am not sure how much I personally love 'on the road' journeys of discovery though. While I understand that the road trip is a vehicle (pun) for the author to expose the underlying thoughts and feelings of the main character and how they interact with others on the way, I am not really interested in the trip itself, the mechanics of eating, sleeping, driving and the scenes of road and rain etc.
I did however adore DeWitt's whimsical touch on the characters and the bizarre nature of family relationships. In this regard DeWitt is brilliant.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I really liked this. A young man embarks on a road trip from California to eastern Canada to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War, visiting each of his family members along the way. Our protagonist Lee is an interesting character in that he's kind of giving nothing. He's incredibly passive and seems to be propelled through the world without much drive or moral guidance. This is a fun choice because by nature of his position he is constantly being questioned, and he can never seem to articulate why he's dodging the draft beyond he doesn't want to go to war (fair enough diva). But the people around him - as well as the wider culture, and in ways the story itself - ask him to defend his decision with a stance that goes beyond self-preservation and speaks to injustice, imperialism, etc, etc and he can't really care to. The concept of being drafted and what you do in response - accept it and go, stay and protest the consequences, run away to Canada - is sort of the ultimate test of what do you stand for? What do you believe you owe your country? When you think of your country do you think of your family? Your community? The government? Or a more amorphous concept you can't really name? What do you owe to your fellow human being? To the larger arc of justice? To the victims of war and imperialism? And simply, Lee is 21 and high and has no interest in interrogating any of these questions, bless him.
I really enjoyed the writing style. It reads like an epic, with characters often talking in metaphors and living exaggerated versions of what could be considered typical "American" lifestyles for the time - dad is an alcoholic, mom moved home to take care of the family land, brother is burnt out at a factory job in a Midwest city, sister is struggling for independence as a young woman in a major city. Much of the story is also told through dialogue which is a really fun choice. Like you often just see two characters going back and forth for pages with little interjection to explain tone, expression or interiority. It makes for a fun, quick-paced read that leaves much of this dialogue to be interpreted.
Ultimately I thought this was really fun and very smart. It leaves a lot to be interpreted by the reader in a fun way, and serves as both a rompy road trip adventure and a genuine exploration of 1960s American cynicism. Incredibly thankful to Fourth Estate for an advanced reader copy of this novel because I see myself returning to it and thinking about it for a long time.
I really enjoyed the writing style. It reads like an epic, with characters often talking in metaphors and living exaggerated versions of what could be considered typical "American" lifestyles for the time - dad is an alcoholic, mom moved home to take care of the family land, brother is burnt out at a factory job in a Midwest city, sister is struggling for independence as a young woman in a major city. Much of the story is also told through dialogue which is a really fun choice. Like you often just see two characters going back and forth for pages with little interjection to explain tone, expression or interiority. It makes for a fun, quick-paced read that leaves much of this dialogue to be interpreted.
Ultimately I thought this was really fun and very smart. It leaves a lot to be interpreted by the reader in a fun way, and serves as both a rompy road trip adventure and a genuine exploration of 1960s American cynicism. Incredibly thankful to Fourth Estate for an advanced reader copy of this novel because I see myself returning to it and thinking about it for a long time.
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
First off, thank you to HarperCollins for a pre-publication ARC (advance reading copy) of this book, due to come out September 29, 2026.
This is my first time reading a novel written by Patrick deWitt, and I doubt it will be my last. I found the writing style to be quirkily formal and verbose, particularly considering that the protagonist, Lee Clarke, is what in later years we might have termed a "slacker," a young man who was suspended from UCLA and worked as a mechanic in Southern California. It took me a while to adjust to this style. I am not sure, this being my first read of a deWitt novel, if this is the author's signature style, or if it is simply the style adopted for this book peopled with overeducated, underemployed young adults of the 1960s-70s. The dialog, in comparison, is more sparse, wry, and to the point, which I found enjoyable and often amusing.
News of Lee's expulsion from the university reached the draft board quickly, and his draft notice arrived far earlier than he'd expected. He thought he had plenty of time to enroll in community college to continue his student deferment. With the date of his physical looming within 2 weeks, Lee quit his job, sold his car, and lucked into an assignment from a long-distance car-delivery service to drive a Jaguar in mint condition eastward to New Jersey. Fueled by fast food and a goodbye gift of amphetamines, he bade his California girlfriend goodbye and set out on a convoluted farewell tour of his fractured family across the US before setting out to cross the Canadian border into an unknown and unplanned future.
Yes, this is a road trip book, populated by an assortment of characters, both family and strangers to Lee. He has plenty of time to reflect on his past and his relationships during his marathon drive, and yes, there are vague signs of love and affection in his family, but don't expect any significant epiphanies before the book closes. As a portrayal of the aimlessness of coming of age in the sixties with its social and often drug-fueled freedoms, yet with the dangers of being pulled into a distant and pointless war ever-looming, it is spot-on. Lee makes it clear that he is not political; he just knows that he doesn't want to kill or be killed, and his instincts draw him toward fleeing to Canada.
This is my first time reading a novel written by Patrick deWitt, and I doubt it will be my last. I found the writing style to be quirkily formal and verbose, particularly considering that the protagonist, Lee Clarke, is what in later years we might have termed a "slacker," a young man who was suspended from UCLA and worked as a mechanic in Southern California. It took me a while to adjust to this style. I am not sure, this being my first read of a deWitt novel, if this is the author's signature style, or if it is simply the style adopted for this book peopled with overeducated, underemployed young adults of the 1960s-70s. The dialog, in comparison, is more sparse, wry, and to the point, which I found enjoyable and often amusing.
News of Lee's expulsion from the university reached the draft board quickly, and his draft notice arrived far earlier than he'd expected. He thought he had plenty of time to enroll in community college to continue his student deferment. With the date of his physical looming within 2 weeks, Lee quit his job, sold his car, and lucked into an assignment from a long-distance car-delivery service to drive a Jaguar in mint condition eastward to New Jersey. Fueled by fast food and a goodbye gift of amphetamines, he bade his California girlfriend goodbye and set out on a convoluted farewell tour of his fractured family across the US before setting out to cross the Canadian border into an unknown and unplanned future.
Yes, this is a road trip book, populated by an assortment of characters, both family and strangers to Lee. He has plenty of time to reflect on his past and his relationships during his marathon drive, and yes, there are vague signs of love and affection in his family, but don't expect any significant epiphanies before the book closes. As a portrayal of the aimlessness of coming of age in the sixties with its social and often drug-fueled freedoms, yet with the dangers of being pulled into a distant and pointless war ever-looming, it is spot-on. Lee makes it clear that he is not political; he just knows that he doesn't want to kill or be killed, and his instincts draw him toward fleeing to Canada.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews