Patrick deWitt’s Dodge City follows a 23-year-old UCLA student whose expulsion ends his Vietnam draft deferment. He signs up to deliver a new Jaguar east, aiming eventually for Canada, with family farewells along the way—including a twin sister training as a nurse at a Manhattan psychiatric hospital. Ecco’s U.S. ebook was released September 29. The attraction is deWitt’s combination of deadpan social behavior and tenderness: the Times’ review describes a warm, dialogue-led comic novel, rather than a conventional road thriller. A good candidate if you want people behaving strangely without a novel explaining the joke to you.

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