Canadian author Patrick deWitt, known for his Booker-shortlisted western The Sisters Brothers, returns with Dodge City, a road novel set in the 1960s. The story follows Leland “Lee” Clarke, a UCLA dropout who receives his draft notice for Vietnam and decides to flee to Canada instead.
Lee is expelled from UCLA after assaulting a fellow student, a wealthy hippy who condescends to him. This “event of violence” – a “one-punch wonder”, as Lee's father calls it – costs him his draft deferment. Lee does not consider himself a conscientious objector, viewing that as another form of heroism, and he rejects “the myth of the hero”. Instead, he plans to dodge the draft by heading north.
A farewell journey across America
To fund the trip, Lee sells his car and signs up for a “drive-away” service, delivering a brand-new Jaguar E-Type. He plots an L-shaped route from Los Angeles to New Jersey, allowing him to say individual goodbyes to his father in Concrete, Washington, his mother in Montana, and his sister, a trainee nurse, in Manhattan. He plans to avoid his brother Harry in Minnesota, citing ancient history.
Lee's relationship with Cal (Calliope), the beautiful blond daughter of east coast intellectuals, is also fraying. Cal finds him exotic, calling him “a patrician redneck” – someone who irons his T-shirts. Their class differences have begun to grate, and the hippy Lee punches is a friend of hers.
Literary style and emotional depth
DeWitt, a high-school dropout who never attended a master of fine arts programme, writes literary fiction for a large audience. His prose features puns, archaisms, and a fondness for the passive voice, violating many current MFA norms. He is a master of arch dialogue, reminiscent of Ivy Compton-Burnett, and his idiosyncrasies sometimes irritate but always remind readers of the difference between having style and having a style.
DeWitt's preoccupation with the past is where he is most contemporary. Lee Clarke's journey is not one of self-discovery but of settling emotional accounts with his family. The visits are attempts to resolve old traumas, and in the end, he finds he cannot avoid Harry. The reader sees Lee's ordinariness immediately and grows more engaged over time, a quality shared with Thomas Mann's Hans Castorp, described as “perfectly ordinary, if engaging”.
Tenderness in a changing career
Over his career, deWitt's books have become more contemplative and less rambunctious. Dodge City is not exactly optimistic, but its emotional tendency is towards tenderness – something few would have expected from the author of The Sisters Brothers. The novel is published by HarperCollins at £18.99.
