The Sisters Brothers

The Sisters Brothers
By Patrick DeWitt
Ecco, 2011. 328 pgs. Fiction

Eli and Charlie Sisters are hired guns in the Wild West of the 1850s. Eli has followed his brother Charlie for years, and in ‘The Sisters Brothers’ he tells of what he hopes to be their last big job for their sketchy employer known as the Commodore. What Eli dreams of is to settle down as a shopkeeper and maybe find a woman to marry and start a family. Their assignment is to kill Hermann Kermit and things seem to go terribly wrong at every turn. Their distress provides readers with a violent but entertaining journey from Oregon City to the goldmines of Sacramento.

“The Sisters Brothers” is a tribute to the classic Western. Patrick DeWitt has created an antihero you can’t help but love despite his choice of occupation and flawed moral compass. Guaranteed to be unlike anything else you have read in years, this shoot-’em-up novel of self-discovery and adventure is a riveting, unexpected, and gritty golden nugget just waiting to be mined.

CZ