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The Sisters Brothers
431 pages
A darkly hilarious, blood-soaked frontier road trip that hides a surprisingly tender heart beneath its dusty exterior.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like riding alongside a pair of weary killers through a landscape that is equal parts brutal and absurd. The narrative unfolds at a steady, episodic clip, driven less by the urgency of the hunt than by the fascinating, melancholic internal monologue of a hitman who is losing his taste for blood. The prose is famously deadpan, employing a slightly formal, polite cadence that makes the sudden bursts of frontier violence feel both shocking and darkly hilarious. It is a gritty, dust-choked journey, yet the atmosphere is continually softened by an unexpected, aching tenderness. It will thoroughly delight readers who love revisionist Westerns, Coen Brothers-style black comedy, and stories about deeply flawed people stumbling toward a gentler way of living.
- Mood
- dusty
- absurdist
- gritty
- oddly tender
- Tone
- deadpan
- darkly comic
- wry
- melancholic
- matter-of-fact
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- fraternal loyalty · the burden of violence · existential weariness · the myth of the American West · yearning for peace
- The writing
- Formal, precise, and delightfully deadpan, creating a sharp contrast between the polite narration and the gruesome events.
- The arc
- Moves from a state of numb, habitual brutality to a weary, profound yearning for domestic peace and redemption.
- Who it's for
- Fans of revisionist Westerns and Coen Brothers films who appreciate a mix of sudden violence, absurd situations, and surprising emotional depth.
Content notes
- graphic violence
- animal death and cruelty
- alcoholism
- gore
About the book
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.
Description from Open Library.
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