Patrick DeWitt

From the author of the acclaimed Ablutions, this dazzlingly original second novel is a darkly funny, offbeat western about a reluctant assassin and his murderous brother.

The Sisters Brothers

Patrick deWitt

Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die, and hired guns 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 goldmining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living—and whom he does it for.

Giovanni Silva

So I was not entirely unhappy when he packed a bag and left one spring morning, without any instruction or good-bye—not so much as a pat on the head from the old man. He later committed suicide, with an ax, in Boston.'

'I don't know. But here was what the letter said: Woefully sorry to report your Hans Warm killed self with ax on 15th May. Possessions forthcoming.'

'No, I don't think so. If there was ever anyone who could find a way to kill himself with an ax, it was Father...'

We coated them head to foot in oil and they were soon all three if them burning exultantly, their bodies stacked and blackened at the base of the blaze and I thought, So much for the calmer life. Warms face appeared a the entrance of the tent to watch the gruesome spectacle. He looked sad. After a time he said, to no one, 'I have had enough of this day today.'

Saddest part of the movie. Again slightly different but still sad all the same.

I followed the trail of plump, dust-covered blood orbs leading over the short hill that walled in our camp; the far side of this was near vertical and he had fallen, sliding fifty yards under his own weight before coming to rest at the root of a wide sequoia. He was butted up to this by the spine and his legs were pointed ignoble skyward and I thought, What a life it is for man's animals, what a trial of pain and endurance and senslessness.

'But what about your agreement?' He asked. 'What of the gold?'

'I don't care about money,' the proprietor answered. 'I don't know why, I should pay more attention to it. No, I was looking forward to an adventure with a friend, is the long and short of it. I had thought Warm and I were close companions.'

These words brought and expression of disgust to my brother's face. He buttoned his coat and retired to the bar for a drink. I stayed behind to watch the man lose another dollar to the woman, then another.

'It is the hardest thing in the world,' he agreed.

A softer side to Charlie that wasn't shown in the movie either. I like it.

He was silent a minute or more, and when he finally spoke his voice was solemn and soft; 'I have never minded cutting down the Commodore's enemies much, brother. It always happens that they are repellent in one way or the other. Lesser villains, men without mercy or grace. But I do not like the idea of killing a man because of his own ingenuity.'

'I don't, either. And I'm very glad to hear you say it.'

He exhaled through his nostrils. 'What do you think we should do?'

Great quote in the movie, love it here too

'My feelings for you quickly changed, Mr. Morris, and I'll tell you why. You haven't a dishonest bone in your body. Typically, for example, when a man wishes another man a good morning, he will smile just as long as he is facing the other person, but as soon as he passes by, the smile immediately drops from his face. His smile had been a false one. That man is a liar, do you see?' 'But everyone does that.' I said 'It is only a small civility.' 'You do not do it.' He told me. 'Your smile, though slight, remains on your lips long after you have turned away. You take genuine pleasure in communing with another man or woman...'

Another scene they used in the movie, the context helps more here though.

'It's just a thing that sometimes happens.'

'Can you go truly crazy and then come back?'

'I've heard a father hands it down to the next.'

'I have never thought of it. Why, do you ever feel crazy?'

'I don't suppose your brother'll be leaving me a hundred.'

'You got all the romantic blood, is that it?'

'Our blood is the same we just use it differently.'

I turned and walked away. A half-dozen steps, and she asked. 'You want to tell me what she did for this?'

I stopped and thought. I told her, 'She was pretty, and kind to me.'

And the poor whore's face, she just did not know what to think about that. She went back into her room, slammed the door shut, and shrieked two times.

I felt two things at once: A gladness at this turn of fortune, but also an emptiness that I did not feel more glad; or rather, a fear that my gladness was forced or false. I thought, perhaps a man is never meant to be truly happy. Perhaps there is no such thing in our world, after all.

Jeeeeez. The scene was quicker in the movie but this would have been a bit much probably for the theater

The trapper with the blue-black beard was still gasping, and I crossed over to look upon him. He was confused, his eyes darting every which way.

'I can't feel it. And I can't hardly hear anything. Where's the others?'

'They're lying next to you. Their heads have bullets, also.'

'They do? Are they talking? I can't hear them.'

Woof, sad intermission chapter. And she kills the dog! Like why though.

'I thought it was the dog's leg,' I said.

The girl wiped the tears from her cheeks. 'But it is the dog's leg.'

I shook my head and pointed. 'The dog's leg is tucked under him, do you see?'

You are wrong. Watch.' She whistled and the dog awoke and stood, and I discovered it truly was missing the leg closest to the bone on the ground, only the skin had long since healed over. It was a years-old wound, and though I was confused, I persevered: 'That there on the ground is the femur bone of a lamb  and not the dog's. Don't you see the animal suffered its loss some time ago and that he is not in pain?'

The statement angered the girl, and now she regarded me with just the same malice with which she had been regarding the house. 'The dog is in pain,' she insisted 'The dog is in no small amount of pain!'

The violence of her words and temper caught me by surprise; I found myself taking a step away from her. 'You are a peculiar girl,' I said.

'It's a peculiar lifetime on earth,' she countered. I did not know what to say to that. At any rate it was as truthful a statement as I had come across.

'Why does anyone? It creeps up on you from time to time.'

I could not see her but listened to her movements—her footsteps, her hands rooting through drawers and over tabletops; I found this endearing, her nearness to me, her busyness, and my not knowing just what she was doing. I decided I liked her then; I was flattered she was devoting her time and concerns to me and I thought, I do not need much at all, to make me feel contented.

Different from the movie quote but I still enjoy it here.

I felt repulsed by Charlie then 'You make for a pretty picture.'

His lids were rising and falling like a pair of blinds being lifted and dropped. He shrugged and said, 'Some days we are stronger... than others.'

The creak of bed springs suffering under the weight of a restless man is as lonely a sound as I know.

We all of us can be hurt, and no one is exclusively safe from worry and sadness. 

Winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, the Prix des libraires du Quebec and the Stephen Leacock Medal. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Walter Scott Prize. Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die: Eli and Charlie Sisters can be counted on for that. Though Eli has never shared his brother’s penchant for whiskey and killing, he’s never known anything else. On the road to Warm’s gold-mining claim outside San Francisco -- and from the back of his long-suffering one-eyed horse -- Eli struggles to make sense of his life without abandoning the job he's sworn to do. Patrick DeWitt, acclaimed author of Ablutions, doffs his hat to the classic Western, and then transforms it into a comic tour-de-force with an unforgettable narrative voice that captures all the absurdity, melancholy, and grit of the West -- and of these two brothers, bound to each other by blood and scars and love.

Laura Mauler

I absolutely loved this book. The parts where animals got hurt were hard for me, very hard, however they were not gratuitous or obscene so I managed them. Even with the animal suffering (usually a deal breaker for me) there is no question that this is a 5 star book.

Excellent book, I think my first western. I really enjoyed all of it, Eli is a great protagonist who's point of view gives a sensitive yet cold look at the American mid-west. Had me crying at the end, so satisfying to finish the Sisters brothers adventure.

Now a major film starring Jaoquin Phoenix, John C. Reilly, Jake Gyllenhal and Riz Ahmed. Shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize, deWitt's dazzlingly original second novel is a darkly funny, offbeat western about a reluctant assassin and his murderous brother. Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. Across 1000 miles of Oregon desert his assassins, the notorious Eli and Charlies Sisters, ride - fighting, shooting, and drinking their way to Sacramento. But their prey isn't an easy mark, the road is long and bloody, and somewhere along the path Eli begins to question what he does for a living - and whom he does it for. The Sisters Brothers pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable ribald tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of 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.

Sonja H

Auch wenn mich das Ende nicht so überzeugt hat: eine schöne Geschichte, die mich oft zum Schmunzeln brachte.

Bob Simone

Enjoyable but not at all remarkable. Characters were one dimensional, but maybe that was part of the plan. In any case, their single dimension was well trod. But I didn't really end up caring about them. Maybe cause they only had a single dimension. I dunno. It didn't take long to read, even for me.

Harriet Moar-Smith

I enjoyed quite a lot of this book but it really feels like there was just a lot of things that were touched on but not fully explored. It also felt like a non-ending.

I don't know, perhaps I expected too much from this book but I just felt like I was lacking in something.

Gary Homewood

Cowboy noir, occasionally comic, ultimately affecting and sad.

Anastaciya

2021 - I feel pretty much the same about the book, just don't care to watch the movie

2017 - It's a great book, a cool style, too - the scenes in the book are like snapshots, clips, it reads fast, and even though the protagonists are killers, you can't help but like them. I'd watch the movie.

The Sisters Brothers

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