The Sisters Brothers

Starred review from January 10, 2011
Dewitt's bang-up second novel (after Ablutions) is a quirky and stylish revisionist western. When a frontier baron known as the Commodore orders Charlie and Eli Sisters, his hired gunslingers, to track down and kill a prospector named Herman Kermit Warm, the brothers journey from Oregon to San Francisco, and eventually to Warm's claim in the Sierra foothills, running into a witch, a bear, a dead Indian, a parlor of drunken floozies, and a gang of murderous fur trappers. Eli's deadpan narration is at times strangely funny (as when he discovers dental hygiene, thanks to a frontier dentist dispensing free samples of "tooth powder that produced a minty foam") but maintains the power to stir heartbreak, as with Eli's infatuation with a consumptive hotel bookkeeper. As more of the brothers' story is teased out, Charlie and Eli explore the human implications of many of the clichés of the old west and come off looking less and less like killers and more like traumatized young men. With nods to Charles Portis and Frank Norris, DeWitt has produced a genre-bending frontier saga that is exciting, funny, and, perhaps unexpectedly, moving.

This is one strange novel about two gunfighters in the Old West who are long on ability and short on conscience. Maybe it's because their last name is Sisters, but the two "heroes" of the novel are loyal only to each other. Patrick deWitt's intriguing story of these two greedy men, whom he somehow makes likable, is a fascinating exercise in writing skill. His scenarios are breathtakingly original--no clichÄs here. John Pruden has just enough of that laid-back cowboy drawl to allow the listener to slip into another time. His pitch-perfect rendition is a wonderful complement to this story about two soldiers of fortune traveling through old Californy during the Gold Rush days. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

January 1, 2011

Eli Sisters is feeling grumpy; brother Charlie has been declared lead man on their next assignment from the Commodore. But it's a job, so off they ride to Sacramento with the aim of killing a gold miner the Commodore wants out of the way. As they track their quarry, encountering an odd assortment of whores, drunks, and visionaries, Eli begins to have qualms about the bloody life he leads. Both homage to the classic Western and knife thrust to its dark underbelly, this novel has a quirky, deadpan exterior and a hard-beating heart. Rabid in-house enthusiasm and film interest; John C. Reilly is attached to produce and star as Eli.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2011

This engrossing novel, set during the gold rush years of the 1850s, begins as a gritty, unapologetic homage to pulp Westerns (with perhaps a nod to Cormac McCarthy as well). In the final pages, however, as the hired guns at the center of the story are forced by circumstances to rethink their lives, the novel turns into something much more philosophical, existential, and extraordinary. The protagonists are two brothers, Eli and Charlie Sisters, widely known for their brutality. They are sent from Oregon City to California to kill an enemy of their boss, the mysterious Commodore. DeWitt (Ablutions) brings the saloons, the ratty frontier towns, and the West itself vividly to life here, and the large cast of colorful characters are skillfully drawn. It's the concluding pages, however, that give the novel its surprising integrity and power. It becomes, in effect, a different kind of novel, profoundly literary, and devoted to serious philosophical meditation. VERDICT Recommended for fans of Westerns and literary fiction.--Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2011

A calmly vicious journey into avarice and revenge.

The unusual title refers to Charlie and Eli Sisters, the latter of whom narrates the novel. The narrative style is flat, almost unfeeling, though the action turns toward the cold-blooded. It's 1851, and the mysterious Commodore has hired the Sisters brothers to execute a man who's turned against him. The brothers start out from their home in Oregon City in search of the equally improbably named Hermann Kermit Warm. The hit has been set up by Henry Morris, one of the Commodore's minions, so the brothers set off for San Francisco, the last-known home of Warm. Along the way they have several adventures, including one involving a bear with an apple-red pelt. A man named Mayfield is supposed to pay them for this rare commodity but instead tries to cheat them, and the brothers calmly shoot four trappers who work for him. Charlie is the more sociopathic of the two, more addicted to women and brandy, while Eli, in contrast, is calmer, more rational, and even shows signs of wanting to give up the murder-for-hire business and settle down. But first, of course, they need to locate Warm. It turns out Morris has thrown in his lot with Warm, a crazed genius who has seemingly discovered a formula that helps locate gold--so much so that he can get in a day what it takes panners a month to glean. When they finally get to the gold-panners, the brothers wind up joining them, removing literally a bucket of gold from the stream. The caustic quality of Warm's formula leads to disaster, however, and Indians show up at an opportune moment to steal the gold.

DeWitt creates a homage to life in the Wild West but at the same time reveals its brutality.

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April 1, 2011
Eli and Charlie Sisters latest mission is to ride down to California to take out prospector Hermann Kermit Warm. Its unclear why the brothers boss, the Commodore, wants Warm dead, but it is clear that the mission is likely to be difficult. The Commodore has appointed Charlie, a whiskey-loving brute who doesnt mind killing, to be lead man on this operation. As its the first time a lead man has been appointed for one of the Sisters assignments, this rubs Eli the wrong way, and he doesnt let Charlie forget it. The brutality of their work begins to wear on Elis gentle and retiring nature, and while Charlie kills, fights, and bullies, Eli begins to question what he does and whom he does it for. DeWitt assembles a host of motley characters for this romping adventure while presenting a good character study in Eli, a narrator whos as likely to pontificate on the trouble with horses as to describe a gunfight.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)