2026 Giller Prize (longlist)
From bestselling author Patrick deWitt comes Dodge City, a rollicking novel about a young man on an amphetamine-fueled cross-country road trip, fleeing the draft for the safe haven of Canada.
LONGLISTED FOR THE GILLER PRIZE
Named a Most Anticipated title by: People.com, Minnesota Star Tribune, Seattle Times, ALTA Journal, Orange County Register, AARP, LitHub, and The Spokesman Review
It’s 1967 in Los Angeles and Lee Clarke has received his draft notice, calling him up to fight in the Vietnam War. A straitlaced, apolitical twenty-three-year-old from Concrete, Washington, Lee is studying at UCLA until a fistfight leads to his expulsion—and his removal from the deferment list. The draft notice forces him 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 II 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 ‘twenty-first-century Mark Twain’ (Slate). Witty, moving, and delightfully off-kilter, Patrick 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 behavior.
Genre: Literary Fiction
LONGLISTED FOR THE GILLER PRIZE
Named a Most Anticipated title by: People.com, Minnesota Star Tribune, Seattle Times, ALTA Journal, Orange County Register, AARP, LitHub, and The Spokesman Review
It’s 1967 in Los Angeles and Lee Clarke has received his draft notice, calling him up to fight in the Vietnam War. A straitlaced, apolitical twenty-three-year-old from Concrete, Washington, Lee is studying at UCLA until a fistfight leads to his expulsion—and his removal from the deferment list. The draft notice forces him 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 II 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 ‘twenty-first-century Mark Twain’ (Slate). Witty, moving, and delightfully off-kilter, Patrick 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 behavior.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"A witty, heartfelt ride. Dodge City is a supreme delight." - Jami Attenberg
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
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