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Dec 22, 2011

Anmiryam rated it:

I wanted to love this book. It jumped off of my pile of shortlisted Booker Prize nominees and demanded to be read first. Everything about it shouted "Yes, it's literature, but IT's FUN." The premise is that of a classic picaresque novel -- Charlie and Eli Sisters, two professional assassins in 1850 are sent by their employer to hunt down and kill Herman Kermit Warm who may, or may not, have stolen something. In the course of their journey from Oregon to California, at the height of the More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Mar 25, 2011

Mike rated it:

It's going to be difficult to find a review, or maybe just to write one, without a slew of comparisons. deWitt's novel is not so much a classic western as a classic revisionist western, and--in tone, wandering plot, outsized eccentrics, casually-brutal violence, and essentially humanist foundations--it's in a league with the great Charles Portis' True Grit, with David Milch's much-missed series Deadwood, and the great Altman film McCabe and Mrs. Miller. While this (dull) repetition of comparis More...

16 comments like (46 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2012

Mina rated it:

I get the McCarthy comparisons, but this book has an additional (disturbing) Kill Bill element, with a totally unique narrator who makes the story his own. I guess the "cowboy noir" description is pretty apt. The Sisters Brothers are some badass fabled assassins, but Sister Brother #2 Eli is no hot and gritty cowboy (a la Daniel Craig); rather he is the pudgy sidekick with a conscience who lends his melancholy, earthy-poetic voice to the tale. The writing is terse, and the characters a More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jun 17, 2011

Jennyreadsexcessively rated it:

Wow--fun, fun read! The Sisters brothers are two guns-for-hire working in the Gold Rush Days of Oregon and California. Eli, the younger and more tenderhearted of the two, narrates the story of himself and his brother, Charlie. Charlie is the brains of the operation. Charlie makes most of the calls and is ruthless when it comes to tolerating others. But Charlie loves his liquor too much to keep the boys on schedule. The brothers have been hired to track down a mysterious gold prospector who More...

2 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jun 08, 2011

Brad rated it:

It seems Patrick deWitt has noted the similarity between the laconic nature of Western heroes and the understated style of dark, dry humour. The Sisters Brothers is a fairly violent tale of two killers who are also brothers, but the narrative voice, coming from the POV of Eli Sisters, does much to undercut the violence of it all. Actual violent acts are quite graphic, but they are described briefly and realistically, and not dwelt upon. More time is spent on dialogue with the odd characters t More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

May 06, 2011

RandomAnthony rated it:

Patrick deWitt's The Sisters Brothers reads like a novel written by a guy under Faulker and Cormac McCarthy's influence but who dispenses, wisely, with 95% of the deep meaning and sticks with a solid, cinematic storyline instead. That's a good decision. Trust me.

The Sisters Brothers proceeds as if the book should have a whistle-heavy soundtrack for the inevitable film, with the lead roles played by up and coming actors of whom we haven't yet heard. Eli and Charlie Sisters, feared More...

1 comment like (24 people liked it)

Sep 20, 2011

Chris rated it:

This is a helluva read, and Eli Sisters is as engaging a narrator as I've read since my brief Portis bender this summer.

I'm not sure how much is there if you go digging beneath the surface of this novel (which is to say: exactly why was it short-listed for the Man-Booker, and what might its selection tell us about the slow decline in shelf-cred of that award since the Man took it over?), but I'm not sure I care to pull it apart either. It will inevitably draw comparisons--McCarthy ( More...

5 comments like (5 people liked it)

May 29, 2011

Lea rated it:

This is a deceptively simple book. The writing is simple, the chapters are short, on the surface of it the story itself is quite simple. But there are ideas here that run much deeper than what you see on the surface.

Charlie and Eli Sisters are killers, so famous that simply stating their names makes people shake with fear. Charlie is brash and ruthless. Eli, who narrates their tale, is introspective and soft hearted. He's been drawn into this life by his feelings of loyalty and More...

5 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jan 01, 2012

Karen rated it:

Awesome cover.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 04, 2012

Jann rated it:

I felt that the characters were more important than the story here and enjoyed this as a character study.

Charlie and Eli Sisters are brothers, hence the title of the book. They make their living as hired killers. Charlie seems to enjoy the work while Eli has a conscience and often questions what and why they do the things they do. In some ways, Charlie is the id and Eli is a combination of the ego and super-ego.

The novel details the situations in which the brothers find t More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 01, 2012

Howard rated it:

Now a western is not a genre I ever thought I would find myself reading, however to simply label this book a western and forget about it would be doing it a huge disservice. It is so brilliantly written I could actually hear the 19th century western drawl of Eli Sisters as he narrates the story, you really feel as if you're inside his head. The trouble is thats exactly where you are, there are no elegant descriptions of the dusty sweeping vistas of goldrush California or the wooden boardwalk wes More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 30, 2011

Brian rated it:

• I read this based on a review in a recent Esquire magazine. It's a departure for me, reading a western novel, but I quite enjoyed it. The story is centered around two brothers, whose last names are Sisters, Charles and Eli. Both are essentially hit men under hire of an elderly but powerful man in Oregon City. At his directive, they embark upon a journey to find and kill a man in San Francisco for reasons not entirely clear But certainly speculated at.) With it's usual fare of gunfights, whores More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 04, 2011

Mti Librarian is currently reading it

I picked this book up solely based on the cover. It is really cute and creepy at the same time. I like it pretty well but I may not finish it. The scene with the dentist was pretty gruesome (I was eating breakfast) and it was also only 24 pages in.

"He closed the door and moved to his room and I lay in the dark thinking about the difficulties of family, how crazy and crooked the stories of a bloodline can be."

"It would appear that oral hygiene is low on More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jun 20, 2011

Valentina rated it:

What a peculiar story this was. At first, I won’t lie, the western theme was not a huge selling point for me. Hesitation was rampant. As soon as I started reading, however, I fell in love with the entire setting.
The book is mainly an adventure story. Since the characters are killers hired by a mysterious man call the Commodore, the reader expects lots of action, lots of gun-slinging scenes, but there aren’t many of those at all. If any. And that’s what makes this book work so well, it brea More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 22, 2011

Pete rated it:

The Sisters Brothers is so perfect and wonderful that I can’t imagine picking up another book for a while. There’s just no point. Okay, it’s kind of like eating a filet with just the right amount of pink in the center for dinner. You wake up and eventually have to eat something else, but the entire time your mind is on that filet.

The author, Patrick deWitt, is going to be a big deal. A very big deal. If you haven’t picked up his last book, Ablutions, then I suggest you do so imm More...

4 comments like (11 people liked it)

Aug 05, 2011

Tyler rated it:

When a new writer of obvious talent begins to demand our attention we cast about for known quantities to compare him (or her) to. I have not read Patrick DeWitt’s earlier work, Ablutions, but I am not surprised to see that this gritty and humorous tale set in a Los Angeles dive bar has people comparing him to Charles Bukowski. Similarly his new work, a smartly dark and funny western, is drawing comparison to Oakley Hall’s Warlock and Charles Portis’s True Grit. While I think these are valid comp More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 26, 2011

Justin rated it:

Damn. If this doesn't get shortlisted for both the Giller & the GG, something is seriously wrong. Unlike a lot of fiction that gets rewarded by Canadian prize juries, this work is not a navel-gazing inquiry into identity, isolation, or memory, but actually about the story, first and foremost. And it's well-written.

Two hired gun brothers sent from Oregon to San Francisco to carry out a killing, but of course things don't go as planned. McCarthy comparisons happening already, but More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 13, 2012

trav rated it:

This was one of the more fun books I read all year. It is set in the Old West during the time of the California gold rush and follows the exploits of Charlie and Eli Sisters, two hired guns with a reputation for dirty killings. These two brothers are out doing the bidding of a very powerful man when things start to change for them and they start plotting how to best ensure their survival with all of the double and triple-crossing going on.

No bones about it - this is a violent book. But More...

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Feb 13, 2012

Matt rated it:

Easy, fun, fast read. Could give it an argument for 4 stars since I read it in one day and definitely enjoyed it, but nothing about it really stood out. It was funny, but it was more situational humor than funny writing. You would never laugh while reading, but looking back you would chuckle at the characters or circumstances. There were good characters and they are definitely what inspired me to plow through this book. Although I believe it is still only in hardcover, which I hate, so maybe not More...

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Feb 11, 2012

Catherine rated it:

On the surface this wouldn't be a book that I would normally search out. Very much like a western with the plot essentially being two brothers who are mercenaries tracking down their next victim. Throw in numerous locations, larger than life characters the quest for money including the gold rush and you have an epic, enthralling read. This book is like an onion, it has so many layers, the relationships between the brothers and their "boss", between the individuals they meet and the More...

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Feb 07, 2012

Irvin rated it:

Just getting this out of the way: I enjoyed reading the book, and don't regret a minute that I spent reading it. It is a solid piece of literary fiction. That being said, it is definitely more of a piece of entertainment than some sort of critical, transformative masterpiece. The book follows the travels of Charles and Eli Sisters, two brothers/hired guns out to kill a man named Hermann Warm. Narrative tension is set by the introduction of friction between the two brothers, and an element of More...

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Feb 04, 2012

Kristopher rated it:

This fast-paced Western tells the story of the two Sisters brothers, Eli and Charlie, who've been hired by the Commodore to go to California and kill a man for allegedly stealing something from the Commodore. What it's really about is the relationship between the hard and bold Charlie, who accepts their mission out of idolatry of the Commodore, and the softer-hearted, obese Eli, who questions their mission and the value of doing work for the Commodore at all.

None of which accurately d More...

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Jan 28, 2012

Book Concierge rated it:

Eli and Charlie are infamous gunslingers in the employ of a powerful man, known only as the Commodore. This time the job takes them to California, which is full of fools following the Gold Rush, to find a man who has crossed their employer (or so the Commodore says). Sounds simple enough; they are professionals after all. And so they set off from Oregon City to San Francisco, encountering on their way a witch, a couple of bears, a dead Indian, a house full of drunken “ladies,” a murderous gang More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Courtney rated it:

Brothers Charlie and Eli Sisters are enforcers, working for the mysterious Commodore who seems to be regularly wronged by men across America. Currently, the Sisters brothers are on their way to San Francisco and the gold rush, to deal with Hermann Kermit Warm - where 'deal' means kill, but not before securing Warm's invention for easily detecting gold underwater. Along the way Eli, our narrator - heavy, hopeful, sentimental - will have to make decisions about where his loyalties lie, and what ki More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

Parksy rated it:

I flew through this book in only a couple of days.

The prose style caught me and had me hooked right away. I love Eli Sisters' old style wild west phrasing, and his simple and matter of fact bluntness... the telling of the story from the eyes of a simple man caught up in a complicated life made the book all the richer. I loved the image of this huge simple unkempt man, riding on a dilapidated one eyed horse, just bursting with the infinite potential of untold rage and violence.

More...

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Jan 20, 2012

Julia rated it:

I was surprised at how much I liked this book. It is a gun slingin western in the days of the California Gold Rush - not normally my type of read and yet it grabbed me at page 1. The cover artwork of this book is pretty amazing for starters.

Eli and Charlie Sisters are brothers with the profession of being hit men for the Commodore, a big, important powerful man. Their current assignment takes them across Oregon into California looking for a man that has a secret recipe for mining More...

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Jan 18, 2012

Ann rated it:

I found this a singular, peculiar work, oddly and unexpectedly poignant in its way. Eli and Charlie Sisters are brothers who work as guns for hire for a powerful man known only as the Commodore. Given the job of going to San Francisco to kill a man unknown to them but one the Commodore has accused of stealing, they unquestioningly set out on new horses to do what they're paid to do. During their meandering journey towards their destination, Eli, the younger, pudgier brother, comes to the real More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2012

Marleen rated it:

Charlie and Eli Sisters are hired killers working for a powerful man only identified as The Commodore in 1850’s America.
They are sent on a mission from Oregon to California to kill Hermann Kermit Warm for reasons that are unclear to the narrator Eli. While travelling towards their destination and latest victim the two brothers meet a host of characters who all operate on the darker side of society, in a world where the law of the strongest and quickest rules.
While Charlie seems made fo More...

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Jan 12, 2012

Pingwing rated it:

This book is great. It’s very different from anything I’ve read recently, which was refreshing. The story is narrated by Eli, and follows he and his older brother, Charlie, while they make their way to San Francisco to track and kill Hermann Kermit Warm, as ordered by their boss, The Commodore. Along the way they encounter a variety of interesting and dangerous people.

Eli and Charlie are killers, and their names are known everywhere they go. I found Eli to be the more sympathetic of More...

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Jan 01, 2012

Michelle rated it:

This was a completely enjoyable, entertaining read! Though I am not one for "westerns", this book does not have a western feel to it, even though it is set in 1851 during the gold rush in California. The tale is narrated by Eli Sisters, one half of the notorious "Sisters Brothers" who are employed by a lucrative and ruthless man known only as "The Commodore". The Commodore sends the two brothers on a journey from Oregon City to San Fransisco to carry out the assas More...

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