The Sisters Brothers is a 2011 Western novel by Canadian-born author Patrick deWitt. The darkly comic story takes place in Oregon and California in 1851. The narrator, Eli Sisters, and his brother Charlie are assassins tasked with killing Hermann Kermit Warm, an ingenious prospector who has been accused of stealing from the Sisters' fearsome boss, the Commodore. Eli and Charlie experience a series of misadventures while tracking down Warm which resemble the narrative form of a picaresque novel, and the chapters are, according to one review, "slightly sketched-in, dangerously close to a film treatment."The film rights for the novel were sold to actor John C. Reilly's production company and adapted into a 2018 film of the same name, with Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix playing Eli and Charlie, respectively.
Hired killers, Charlie and Eli Sisters travel from Oregon City to San Francisco to murder Herman Warm. On the way, one of them starts to question their line of business. The first half of the book is a surreal, dream-like ramble through an Old West populated with bizarre and wonderful characters. The second half gets a bit more plot bound and moves from comedy to tragedy via a parade of grisly deaths. The whole thing is very readable, funny, sad and strangely beautiful. Definitely worth reading.
Some time in the past, I put this book on my "want to read" list, but I don't remember why.
This week, it was available, and I wanted something to read, so I borrowed the ebook.
As soon as I started it, I wondered why. There's no talking cats, no robots, no spaceships. It's a couple of hired guns on their way to California to kill somebody during the gold rush.
Absolutely compelling. Reminded me in a good way of a [a:Guy Vanderhaeghe|98125|Guy Vanderhaeghe|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1253558267p2/98125.jpg] western story or the TV series Deadwood.
I looked it up on Wikipedia and it turns out to be a hugely award-winning Canadian novel. It is also supposed to be "darkly comic". So comic that it won the 2012 Stephen Leacock medal.
This has taught me that I'm not up at all on Canadian literature and maybe I don't have the great sense of humour that …
Some time in the past, I put this book on my "want to read" list, but I don't remember why.
This week, it was available, and I wanted something to read, so I borrowed the ebook.
As soon as I started it, I wondered why. There's no talking cats, no robots, no spaceships. It's a couple of hired guns on their way to California to kill somebody during the gold rush.
Absolutely compelling. Reminded me in a good way of a [a:Guy Vanderhaeghe|98125|Guy Vanderhaeghe|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1253558267p2/98125.jpg] western story or the TV series Deadwood.
I looked it up on Wikipedia and it turns out to be a hugely award-winning Canadian novel. It is also supposed to be "darkly comic". So comic that it won the 2012 Stephen Leacock medal.
This has taught me that I'm not up at all on Canadian literature and maybe I don't have the great sense of humour that I thought I had.
I really liked this book, but it did not make me laugh.
This book had me hooked by the second page. It’s on the same trajectory that brought us Charles Portis’ [b:True Grit|257845|True Grit|Charles Portis|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XHR1NY3TL.SL75.jpg|1320617] and the HBO series Deadwood.
Patrick deWitt skillfully uses the voice of his narrator, Eli Sisters, to tell us about the gold rush-era American west. Eli and his brother Charlie are hired guns headed for California, and leave a trail of blood in their path.
Episodes veer from comedy to tragedy almost instantaneously; actually, they don’t “veer” as much as portray simultaneous duality. How can a scene be both funny and awful at the same time? deWitt shows us how.
Early on, after sustaining a spider bite, Eli says:
“The left side of my face was grotesquely swollen, from the crown of my skull all the way to the neck, tapering off at the shoulder. My eye was merely a slit and Charlie, regaining …
This book had me hooked by the second page. It’s on the same trajectory that brought us Charles Portis’ [b:True Grit|257845|True Grit|Charles Portis|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XHR1NY3TL.SL75.jpg|1320617] and the HBO series Deadwood.
Patrick deWitt skillfully uses the voice of his narrator, Eli Sisters, to tell us about the gold rush-era American west. Eli and his brother Charlie are hired guns headed for California, and leave a trail of blood in their path.
Episodes veer from comedy to tragedy almost instantaneously; actually, they don’t “veer” as much as portray simultaneous duality. How can a scene be both funny and awful at the same time? deWitt shows us how.
Early on, after sustaining a spider bite, Eli says:
“The left side of my face was grotesquely swollen, from the crown of my skull all the way to the neck, tapering off at the shoulder. My eye was merely a slit and Charlie, regaining his humor, said I looked like a half dog, and he tossed a stick to see if I would chase it.”
That is the tone of brotherhood in this book.
As much as Charlie is a heartless SOB, Eli is a little more sentimental. Portrayed as “heftier” and rather slow-witted, Eli periodically reflects on his life and gives us wonderful lines like this:
“When a man is properly drunk it is as though he is in a room by himself.”
Like Eli’s horse Tub, the book stumbles along at the end. There’s a little too much speechifying by some characters, and then there’s an ending that…seems…a little off. My reaction is that we are not supposed to trust Eli as a narrator. I’m trying not to give away anything here, but concluding events work out a little too easily in his favor. With more careful reading, I’d probably be able to pick up more clues (perhaps from the “intermissions”?).
Finally, five stars to the superb cover art by Dan Stiles.
