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