Patrick deWitt’s ‘Dodge City’ follows a draft-dodging road trip

Patrick deWitt’s “Dodge City” takes up the American road novel through the story of Leland “Lee” Clarke, a UCLA dropout facing conscription to Vietnam. The novel opens when Lee receives his draft notice, after an assault on another student ends his college career and costs him his draft deferment.

Lee was expelled after striking a wealthy hippie student who had condescended to him. His father describes the incident as a “one-punch wonder.” The book presents the violence as a decisive event in Lee’s circumstances, linking his expulsion to the loss of the deferment that had kept him from being drafted.

Lee does not identify as a conscientious objector. The review says he regards that position as another form of heroism and presents his own critique of the heroic ideal as central to his thinking. He nevertheless does not want to go to Vietnam and chooses to dodge the draft instead.

His plan is to drive across the United States and head to Canada. The journey places the novel in the tradition of the 1960s road story, while the review describes deWitt as combining the genre’s premise with literary artifice. The novel follows the author’s earlier success with the western “The Sisters Brothers,” which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2011.