The Sisters Brothers

Patrick DeWitt's The Sisters Brothers made the Giller Prize Short List.

From the book cover
Hermann Kermitt 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.
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Eli and Charlie Sisters are infamous professional killers. Charlie, the older brother, is the 'lead' killer. Violent from childhood, the first person he killed was his father. Eli, the narrator, is the younger brother who's always looked to his older brother for guidance. Eli doesn't thrive on violence and killing the way his brother does. In fact, he only got into the killing business in order to provide back-up for his brother.

I was not an efficient killer. I was not and had never been and would never be. Charlie had been able to make use of my temper was all; he had manipulated me, exploited my personality, just as a man prods a rooster before a cockfight. I thought, How many times have I pulled my pistol on a stranger and fired a bullet into his body, my heart a mad drum of outrage, for the lone reason that he was firing at Charlie, and my very soul demanded I protect my own flesh and blood? p. 216

Eli and Charlie's latest assignment has them travelling from Oregon to California to track down and kill an eccentric gold prospector, Hermann Kermit Warm. On their way they come across a cast of colourful characters. DeWitt subtly imparts a moral lesson on his readers. Eli and Charlie steal and murder their way to California with luck apparently on their side. The return trip after their task is complete, reaffirms that old saying 'easy come, easy go.'

The novel is structured in three parts with short chapters (usually two or three pages) breaking up the three sections. This is a great format for commuters, moms or anyone else who has a busy schedule that dictates lots of multi-tasking. This format was also helpful three quarters of the way through when the story started to drag.

At first I wasn't sure how I would fare reading about professional killers. All of the reviews (the book cover is littered with quotes from reputable publications praising Patrick DeWitt's brilliance) warn or at least hint at the level of goriness. Having read Jack Whyte's The Forest Laird, in which small children are buggered and pregnant woman are savagely abused, The Sisters Brothers is not overly gruesome, it's just indicative of the time in which it is set: 1854.

I really enjoyed this novel, although, I'm not sure it lives up to all of its hype. It is a Man Booker, Giller Prize, and Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize Finalist. I can totally see it on the big screen like Pulp Fiction minus the gay scenes. The western background is a novelty, the gore is mild to medium, and the fact that the protagonist is an assassin are all things that make this novel stand out, but still something was missing for me.

4/5

The Free World

David Bezmozgis's The Free World was named to the 2011 Giller Prize Short List.

From the book cover:

Summer, 1978. In the bustling streets of Rome, strange new creatures have appeared: Soviet Jews who have escaped to freedom through a crack in the Iron Curtain. Among the thousands who have landed in Italy to secure visas for new lives in the West are the members of the Krasnansky family. Together, three generations of Russians Jews - some eager to embrace the opportunities emigration affords, others reluctant to leave the country to which they dedicated themselves body and soul - will immerse themselves in the carnival of emigration, with the promise and peril of a better life.
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Told through the eyes and memory of three members of the Krasnansky family (Samuil, Alec and Polina), The Free World is a captivating story about the immigrant experience. Samuil, the family patriarch, is a staunch communist who is reluctantly accompanying his family on their quest for freedom. Alec is Samuil's youngest son. At 26, he is naive - having been protected from the world by his father's status in the Soviet Union and his older brother's bad boy persona. Polina is Alec's wife and the only non-Jewish member of the Krasnansky family. This among other things makes her an outsider within the family.

The Story takes place over a span of about six month during the family's time in Rome, where they are waiting for visas so that they can start their new lives in Canada. For Samuil's part of the narrative, we learn about his experiences in the years leading up to the forming of the Soviet Union (including the murders of the father and grandfather by White Army soldiers), his time in the Red Army and his rise to prominence in the Communist Party. Alec and Polina's narrative is less political and more personal. We learn about their courtship and their experiences coming of age in the Soviet Union.

I love reading novels that open my eyes to events and experiences that are unfamiliar to me. The mark of a good book is one that sends me to Wikipedia to learn more.

My only issue with this book is that some of the scenes seem forced, as though they exist solely to demonstrate some of the Russian stereotypes that persist around gangsterism, black market trading and brutality. One such scene that comes to mind is one that leads up to the story's climax. Alec is roughed up by some guys that are affiliated with his brother but we never get a clear explanation of why it happens. Alec and his brother don't have issues and have served as each others confidantes in the past, so it doesn't add up when Alec doesn't go to his brother.

Otherwise, I really enjoyed this novel.

4/5

Up next: The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

The Cat's Table

Michael Ondaatje's The Cat's Table made the 2011 Giller Prize Short List.

The Cat's Table is named after the lowliest dining table on the Oronsay, a cruise ship traveling from Colombo to England in 1954. The narrator is an eleven-year-old Sri Lankan boy named Michael (nicknamed Mynah). Michael is traveling to England to be reunited with his mother who has been living in England for five or six years at the opening of the novel.

At the cat's table Michael meets two boys around his age, who become his constant companions throughout the 21-day voyage. Cassius is a notorious troublemakers. He and Michael went to the same school in Colombo so they are aware of each other but aren't friends at the beginning of the voyage. Ramadhin is quiet, smart and physically frail ( he has allergies and a bad heart). Also at the cat's table with the boys, are a host of colourful character, each with an interesting, if not mysterious reason for being on the ship. Michael's older cousin, Emily is also  on board the ship.

The Cat's Table has an Agatha Christie murder mystery quality to it. During the 21-day voyage, Michael discovers several interesting plots unfolding among his fellow passengers. One of the world's wealthiest men is on board, traveling to England to seek treatment for a curse; there's a thief stealing from first-class cabins; and a dangerous prisoner is being transported to England to stand trial for the murder of a judge.

I love a good mystery and under all of its literary greatness that's exactly what The Cat's Table is.

Ondaatje's style is subdued but compelling. The plot skips back and forth between the time on the ship and the future. In this way Ondaatje shows and tells the reader the answers to many of the plot's mysteries.

4/5

Next up: The Free World by David Bezmozgis

The Antagonist

Lynn Coady's The Antagonist is on the 2011 Giller Prize Short List.

Gordon "Rank" Rankin is the story's protagonist (and in my opinion the antagonist).

Rank decides to write a novel about his life after coming across an old friend's book that features a character that he thinks is based on his life. Using the guise of needing a professional writer to look over his work, Rank begins to bombard his old friend, Adam, with emails. The entire story is comprised of emails from Rank to Adam. We, the reader, do not get to read Adam's responses to Rank's emails. 

Rank's emails starts off very angry. He's angry at Adam for 'stealing' his life and labeling him as having an 'innate criminality;' he's angry at himself for being naive and giving Adam so much information for his book; and he's especially angry at his father Gordon Rankin, Senior. The only person he's not angry at is his dead mother, Sylvie. We don't find out how Sylvie died until the last few pages of the story. This is one of the reasons I love this novel. Lynn Coady does an amazing job of building suspense and keeping the reader wanting more up until the very last words.

Much of Rank's problems stem from the fact that he is a really big guy who doesn't have the temperament that everyone expects him to have with his hulking build. This usually results in him being pressured to play the violent thug or enforcer role, on a couple occasions to tragic results.

Another reason I love this book is Lynn Coady's casual way of throwing out game changing details.

Without giving away too much, I'll say Rank is not the type of person he appears in the first quarter of the book. He actually turns out to be a bit of a stereotype. I won't say what type of stereotype because I don't want to ruin it for anyone thinking of reading it.
5

Next Up: The Cat's Table

Better Living Through Plastic Explosives

Better Living through Plastic Explosives is a collection of short stories by Zsusi Gartner. Better Living through Plastic Explosives is on the 2011 Giller Prize short list.

Summer of the Flesh Eater

The men in this short story remind me of the women of Wisteria Lane a la the popular television show Desperate Housewives. Told through a third-person group narrative, a group of Fraiser Crane-like men living in an upscale Vancouver cul-de-sac suffer through a summer of dealing a new neighbour they deem uncivilized. The new neighbour wears cut-off t-shirts, drinks beer from the can, and fixes cars in his drive way, standard stuff but to these 'evolved' men he's practically a neanderthal. In reality the new neighbour is really just a thinly veiled stereotype of the typical man as depicted in prime time circa 2003 (think According to Jim  and King of Queens).

Once, We Were Swedes
Alex is a retired journalist who now teaches a journalism class at a Vancouver community college. She's married to a man who's six years older than her, but as the story progresses their aging processes go into overdrive in opposite directions (sort of like the Brad Pitt movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). By the end of the story, Alex is an old woman with dentures and mobility issues and her husband is a teenager. The title comes from the IKEA language they use to speak in happier times.

Floating Like a Goat
This long, run-on letter from a mother to her daughter's grade one art teacher is sooo entertaining. I wish I had the courage to write a letter like that to my kids' teachers when they implement classroom rules that don't vibe with my way of thinking. The title comes from one of the the rules the art teacher sets for her students: when drawing animals and people, their feet must touch the ground.

Investment Results May Vary

“Is it so terrible to want what you can’t have?" Dan and Patricia O'Donnell have it all. They are a beautiful, well-off couple who insist on having the best of everything. Nina is an angry basement dweller who works as a Vancouver Olympic mascot. Honey Fortuna is a real estate agent who's worked very hard for her successful, always keeping a stiff upper lip no matter what's dealt her. Homes are being swallowed by the mountain in Vancouver's ritzy north shore (no humans or animals have been harmed). Nina kidnaps the O'Donnells' young son.

The Adopted Chinese Daughters' Rebellion
A majority of the couples on a well-to-do cul-de-sac in Vancouver adopt female babies from China and set out to raise them with Chinese cultural values. They go from the mild to the ridiculous in this satire of what many couples have done over the years. Eventually they cause the Chinese daughters so much misery, they (and the one natural daughter on the cul-de-sac) run away one night.

What are We doing Here?
Deirdre (Didi) is a young twentysomething NOW reporter on an awkward date with a much older, almost-famous photographer she interviewed for a story. The date take places at his 14th floor apartment, where he's grilling steaks and making baked potatoes. Didi is extremely bored; when the photographer invited her over, she thought she'd be attending a party with his famous friends. Her mind keeps running on to the wild party she attended the night before as she tries to muster the courage to ask the photographer "What are we doing here?"

Someone is Killing the Great Motivational Speakers of Amerika
A motivational speaker and mother takes her followers and her kids to the woods to avoid succumbing to the same fate as many of her motivational peers. During the camping trip she observes her control of her flock loosening and contemplates walking barefoot on hot coals to bring them back under her control. She also muses about the various ways the other motivational speakers disappeared or passed on.

Mister Kakami
Patrick Kakami is a filmmaker going through a midlife crisis. During a photo shoot on a remote Vancouver island, Kakami goes missing. Syd, the film's producer and Kakami's only friend, journeys through a dense Vancouver forest in search Kakami.


We Come in Peace
Five angels from biblical times take over the bodies of five Vancouver teenagers (four boys and one girl) so they can experience what it is to be human. Their actions while in the bodies change the course of the kids' lives forever.

Better Living Through Plastic Explosives
The title of the story, Better Living Through Plastic Explosives, is a play on DuPont's advertising slogan "Better Living Through Chemistry." In this story a 'recovering terrorist' is now married, raising a son and attending group sessions with other recovering misfits.

3/5

Next up: The Antagonist

Half Blood Blues

Half Blood Blues, Esi Edugyan's second novel, won the 2011 Giller Prize.

Half Blood Blues is the story of three members of a German jazz band, the Hot Time Swingers, who flee to Paris in 1940 to escape Nazi Germany. Two of the three band members are 'half-bloods', of mixed race. Hieronymous (Hiero) Falk is the youngest and the most talented member of the band. When word of his trumpet playing reaches Louis Armstrong in Paris, the group members find themselves with tickets out of Germany - just in the knick of time.

Hiero as a black German of mixed race (his mother is German and his father is African) is in the most danger from the increasingly powerful Nazis; the other two band members are American. Sidney (Sid) Griffith, the band's bassist and narrator of the story is 'high yella' which allows him to pass as white, putting him in the least amount of danger of the three band members. Sid is so jealous of Hiero, his action wind up causing Hiero his freedom and alter the course of their lives forever. Sid's childhood friend, Chip Jones, is the group's drummer.

I love reading about historical events from the perspective of the extreme other. I've read many stories about World War II from the perspective of the Jews and white Germans. Until picking up Half Blood Blues, I hadn't given much thought to blacks in Germany. I'm glad Half Blood Blues is the book to introduces me to these forgotten victims of World War II.

Esi Edugyan smoothly weaves shocking historical details into the story of these three friends trying to survive during the Nazi occupation of Europe. SHE does a great job of developing dialogue for her three central MALE characters.

I need a prequel! I want to learn more about the Hiero's childhood and his life after the war.

5