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Product Description
Review
[Patrick] DeWitt has produced a genre-bending frontier saga that is exciting, funny, and perhaps unexpectedly, moving. -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
. . . fresh, hilariously anti-heroic, often genuinely chilling, and relentlessly compelling. Yes, this is a mighty fine read, and deWitt a mighty fine writer. --National Post
In The Sisters Brothers, a diabolical combination of Laurel and Hardy and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (with a touch of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, just to emphasise the high literary stakes) deWitt has ensured another unforgettable pair their place in fictive lore. -- The Telegraph
. . . fresh, hilariously anti-heroic, often genuinely chilling, and relentlessly compelling. Yes, this is a mighty fine read, and deWitt a mighty fine writer. --National Post
In The Sisters Brothers, a diabolical combination of Laurel and Hardy and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (with a touch of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, just to emphasise the high literary stakes) deWitt has ensured another unforgettable pair their place in fictive lore. -- The Telegraph
Book Description
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2011. Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn’t share his brother’s appetite for whiskey and killing, he’s never known anything else. But their prey isn’t an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm’s gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living — and whom he does it for. With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters — losers, cheaters, and ne’er-do-wells from all stripes of life — and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humour, melancholy, and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.
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Most helpful customer reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
An Anything Can Happen Western-style Novel,
By Ian Gordon Malcomson (Victoria, BC) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME) (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: The Sisters Brothers (Paperback)
This is one of the strangest and wildest novels I have ever read. With all its twists and turns and bizarre outcomes, I don't know how to classify it other than to call it a modern spoof about the legendary West, encased in an anything-goes, cowboy style. While one part of me finds the adventures of two hell-raising brothers bent on doing their thing as hired guns a compelling and a sometimes amusing read, another part takes issue at the often awkward and loose way in which they are told. The account of Eli and Charles as gun-touting, adventure-seeking hitmen doing the bidding of a local `mafia' boss comes with plenty of peculiarities that make it fast-paced, unpredictable and something larger than life. One, complicating the lives of these two murderous bounty-hunters is that Eli and Charles are brothers who really care for each other, a quality that one doesn't generally associate with contract killers. Two, their quest appears to be a never-ending journey into the wilds of the Oregon Territory to kill someone they have never met. The reader will take three-quarters of the book to discover who their quarry really is. Three, along the way, obstacles will emerge that require both ingenuity and good fortune to overcome and stay the course. Four, in the end, our two gunslingers will accomplish their mission only to realize that the venture has been so much more than originally anticipated. Decent men and women have been killed; trust has been broken; and life has virtually been taken to the edge. On all these points, deWitt has done a reasonable job in composing a readable novel. But, in creating this torrid-paced, thriller of a novel, the author may have taken some significant literary short-cuts to get art to imitate life. For instance, the story hurls ahead with breath-taking speed as it tries to wow the reader with a big-moment, crazy story. What results in the end is a plot that has too many gaps, too many improbable moments, and too many stock characters. Throw in the extensive use of the modern idiom and you have a novel that, while imaginatively conceived, is poorly planned and rendered. In no way, does it even remotely come close to being in the same league as Cervantes' "Don Quixote".
25 of 28 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good but not Booker good.,
By
This review is from: The Sisters Brothers (Hardcover)
Set in 1851 right in the middle of the California gold rush, the novel tells the story of two infamous brothers Charlie and Eli Sisters who set out on a mission by the commodore from Oregon City to apprehend and kill Hermann Kermit Warm.The chapters are short and the pace is brisk as the brothers drink, swear, trick and shoot their way west in pursuit of their quarry encountering a witch, an orphan and a prospector gone mad in the solitude of his work. The narration of Eli Sisters is in a evocative cowboy patter and the description of the fairly frequent violence is vivid the effect being to put you in the saddle as they slaughter their way across the west toward California but it's not for the feint-hearted. It's an entertaining yarn, the relationship between the younger Eli and the elder Charlie is an intelligent mix of admiration, jealousy and competition and the vivid prose is a real highlight. It is very light reading and I went through it in a couple of days without really trying. My judgement is that it's good but not booker good and I can't see this one getting through to the longlist.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Where is the rest, and why did this ever win an award?,
By Anglobotomy (Las Vegas, Nv United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Sisters Brothers (Paperback)
Got it for Christmas because I requested it thinking that if it's so highly acclaimed it must be good. Also, the back of the book sounded interesting and fun. Aside from the few, spare comical parts and the simple fact that the writing itself is relatively good, this book was incredibly disappointing, a waste of time. The story is not full of twists and turns, as some have said. It is boring, empty and depressing. The only part of the book I enjoyed was Eli's relationship with his horse, and that's not saying much. Several times, I had to read about how the narrator pleasures himself, and even more annoying, his many observations of his brother's genitalia. If you like that sort of thing, read this book. If you enjoy unlikable characters, read this book. If you're looking for a mundane, uninteresting plot, read this book. Were there so few other books laying about that this one lucked into winning so many awards?
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