Dodge City by Patrick deWitt: Story, Release Date and 1967 Setting

Patrick deWitt’s Dodge City begins with a young man facing a decision that will dismantle the life he enjoys. It is 1967, and Lee Clarke has received a notice calling him to military service in Vietnam. He decides to leave the United States, but first he wants to say goodbye.

Published on September 29, 2026, the novel follows a journey toward Canada that also becomes a series of family encounters. For readers curious about deWitt’s latest book, here is a spoiler-light guide to its release, premise and historical setting.

When was Dodge City released?

Dodge City was published on September 29, 2026, by Ecco in the United States and House of Anansi in Canada. It is already published as of October 1.

The U.S. hardcover listing on Bookshop.org identifies the Ecco edition as 256 pages, with ISBN 9780063438118. Readers comparing editions should check the format: the U.S. large-print edition has a separate October 6, 2026, publication date.

What is Dodge City about?

Lee Clarke is 23, originally from Concrete, Washington, and studying at UCLA when a fight gets him expelled. Losing his place at college also means losing his draft deferment. His notice arrives, and a future he had not seriously considered suddenly becomes unavoidable.

According to House of Anansi’s official description, Lee takes a job delivering a new Jaguar to the East Coast. With a suitcase and amphetamines, he sets out across the country while intending ultimately to reach Canada.

The trip includes visits to four members of his immediate family. His father is a struggling World War II veteran; his mother lives alongside her reclusive sibling; his brother Harry is embittered and heartbroken; and his twin sister Grace is training as a nurse at a Manhattan psychiatric hospital.

That setup gives Lee’s departure two dimensions. He is leaving a country that demands something he cannot accept, and he is confronting the relationships that connect him to it.

Why the 1967 setting matters

The year explains the pressure behind Lee’s journey. His departure follows the loss of his deferment and the arrival of his Vietnam draft notice. Staying in college had protected the life he was living; expulsion changes the consequences of an otherwise personal failure.

What makes the premise interesting is Lee’s lack of a ready-made political identity. He has not built his life around activism. He loves his girlfriend and enjoys California. The demand to serve forces him to decide what obligations he believes he has to his country.

Read through that premise, the road trip raises a question larger than where Lee will end up: how much can a country ask of someone before leaving becomes the choice they can live with?

The family stops give that question a human scale. A border can mark the end of a journey, but it cannot automatically settle what a person owes the people left behind.

The family story that inspired Dodge City

In deWitt’s introduction published by HarperReach, the author traces the novel’s starting point to his father, a Canadian with dual citizenship who moved to Southern California in the mid-1960s.

His father enjoyed life in Los Angeles until receiving a draft notice. He arranged to drive a delivery car back toward Canada, using amphetamines to help him make the journey. After returning, he met deWitt’s mother.

DeWitt connects that family history with questions he began considering around Donald Trump’s first term: when might someone choose to leave their country? Those two strands helped generate the novel.

This is inspiration for a work of fiction, rather than a claim that Lee’s story reproduces deWitt’s father’s life. It also makes the historical setting more revealing: the author uses a remembered departure to explore a question that remained unresolved for him decades later.

What kind of novel should readers expect?

Dodge City combines historical fiction, a road narrative and a family story. In its review of the novel, Publishers Weeklyhighlights the combination of humor and poignancy in Lee’s encounters, describing a journey that also becomes a farewell to America.

That combination is the book’s strongest point of interest for me. An escape story has a clear destination, while a family story can complicate every mile toward it. Each goodbye creates another reason to consider what leaving actually means.

This is a release guide based on publisher information, the author’s account and attributed criticism; it does not assign a review score.

Do you need to read another Patrick deWitt book first?

Dodge City is presented as a standalone novel, so no previous reading is required. It is deWitt’s sixth novel, following Ablutions, The Sisters Brothers, Undermajordomo Minor, French Exit and The Librarianist.

For readers drawn to historical fiction about ordinary people facing consequential choices, its premise offers a clear reason to pick it up. The immediate problem is a draft notice. The deeper attraction is the possibility of watching one departure change how a young man understands his family, his country and himself.

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