The Sisters Brothers - Softcover

DeWitt, Patrick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1847083188 ISBN 13: 9781847083180

Publisher: Granta Books, 2011

Synopsis

Oregon, 1851. Eli and Charlie Sisters, notorious professional killers, are on their way to California to kill a man named Hermann Kermit Warm. On the way, the brothers have a series of unsettling and violent experiences in the Darwinian landscape of Gold Rush America. Charlie makes money and kills anyone who stands in his way; Eli doubts his vocation and falls in love. And they bicker a lot. Then they get to California, and discover that Warm is an inventor who has come up with a magical formula, which could make all of them very rich. What happens next is utterly gripping, strange and sad. Told in deWitt's darkly comic and arresting style, THE SISTERS BROTHERS is the kind of Western the Coen Brothers might write - stark, unsettling and with a keen eye for the perversity of human motivation. Like his debut novel ABLUTIONS, THE SISTERS BROTHERS is a novel about the things you tell yourself in order to be able to continue to live the life you find yourself in, and what happens when those stories no longer work. It is an inventive and strange and beautifully controlled piece of fiction, which shows an exciting expansion of Dewitt's range

About this title

Review:

'Triumphantly dark ... The writing is superb ... deWitt has ensured another unforgettable pair their place in fictive lore' --Sunday Telegraph

'A blackly comic witty noir version of Don Quixote. DeWitt's story is hugely entertaining' --Financial Times

'Often blackly hilarious' --The Times

'An unsettling, compelling and deeply strange picaresque novel ... it has much to say about the business of being human' --Independent on Sunday

'A stunningly accomplished book. With this novel, deWitt proves that he is well on the way to greatness' --Dazed & Confused

'The Sisters Brothers confirms DeWitt as one of the most talented young writers around' --Sunday Times

'A powerfully realized work of narrative fiction ... the dialogue is sharp as a whip' --Times Literary Supplement

`A boldly eloquent adventure story full of sweat and casual violence about a man trying to live a better life' --Metro

'Bursting with vitality and driven along by a terrific pulpy energy' --The Herald

'DeWitt never misses a beat in what is a masterclass on the twists of the mind and heart'
--Scotsman

From the Back Cover:

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

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 humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.

About this edition

• Publisher: Granta Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1847083188
• ISBN 13: 9781847083180
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 210