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.
[guessing at the star rating / mining my old FB notes now that they are almost impossible to find]
2 psychopathic killers on the loose during the california gold rush. told in first person narrative, this character is unlike any i've inhabited. you're inclined to like him; he can be quite nice. and he is insisting this will be his last 'job'. but he's still a killer and his recent change of heart, or his explaining how the dark rage comes over him, doesn't erase his past.
it's his brother you identify as a cold blooded killer. yet all his power is removed from him by the end and you don't know how to feel.
i think this author is incredibly talented to write from this somewhat-but-not-totally detached point of view. i know it was good because i'd like some more.
If I hadn't recently read Charles Portis' classic western [b:True Grit|761667|True Grit|Charles Portis|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51v3ODabXnL.SL75.jpg|1320617], I would have claimed The Sisters Brothers to have a glorious style and cadence utterly unique to me. I can see that deWitt has perhaps co-opted the overall style of another (an arguable point, as his first novel [b:Ablutions: Notes for a Novel|5291478|Ablutions Notes for a Novel|Patrick deWitt|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1267375909s/5291478.jpg|5358903] [a terrific read as well] has much of the same voice), but who cares when the result is this much fun? Very likely my favourite read of 2011, deWitt has created a profane, violent, funny, and just plain awesome piece of work, and the fact that this novel—written by a Canadian who has long made the U.S. his home, and with nary a mention of Canada anywhere—is up for major Canadian awards tickles me. deWitt's dialogue is superb, laden with dry wit, and the characters of Eli …
If I hadn't recently read Charles Portis' classic western [b:True Grit|761667|True Grit|Charles Portis|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51v3ODabXnL.SL75.jpg|1320617], I would have claimed The Sisters Brothers to have a glorious style and cadence utterly unique to me. I can see that deWitt has perhaps co-opted the overall style of another (an arguable point, as his first novel [b:Ablutions: Notes for a Novel|5291478|Ablutions Notes for a Novel|Patrick deWitt|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1267375909s/5291478.jpg|5358903] [a terrific read as well] has much of the same voice), but who cares when the result is this much fun? Very likely my favourite read of 2011, deWitt has created a profane, violent, funny, and just plain awesome piece of work, and the fact that this novel—written by a Canadian who has long made the U.S. his home, and with nary a mention of Canada anywhere—is up for major Canadian awards tickles me. deWitt's dialogue is superb, laden with dry wit, and the characters of Eli and Charlie are wonderfully done, the perfect mixture of psychotic killers and melancholy dreamers. Some have complained that deWitt's style is too 'cinematic' to be considered literature (who ever complained of a movie being too literate?); I say, it's not the story, it's how you tell it, and deWitt tells his story superbly in a style that completely suits the story. I wish more novels were this bloody alive: dialogue as rich, subtle, and memorable as this is hardly any easier than obtuse poetic descriptions of windswept Canada prairies (I'm being snarky, I know, sue me). The cinematic possibilities are present, of course—the Coen brothers desperately need to get their hands on this; keep John C. Reilly as Eli, add Philip Seymour Hoffman as Charlie—but merely because a movie can be envisioned is no excuse for needless denigration. The Sisters Brothers is a major achievement, as gutsy and vital and just damned entertaining a novel as you could hope for.
