Saturday, May 21, 2011

Pete Advises You Take a Look at This Book Before The Sisters Brothers Come Looking For You!

Hermann Kermit 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.

With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters–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.

Read his hilarious posting about ideas on Powell's blog.

Meet the Author!!!  Patrick DeWitt will be reading from and signing his book at Tuesday, May 24 at 7:30 pm at our Colfax Avenue Store.

Pete says:
"If there is indeed a revival of the western novel following the success of the recent 'True Grit' movie and the rediscovery of the original True Grit novel by Charles Portis (see Pete's review of that book here), then perhaps the next great western novel to emerge will be The Sisters Bothers by Patrick deWitt. This extraordinary tale follows the adventures and misadventures of two brothers who make their living as hit men for a shadowy figure known only as 'The Commodore.' The older brother is maybe a little too enthusiastic for their bloody deeds, while the younger brother begins to envision a way of life that doesn't include murder and mayhem.


What's fun about this book is that the brothers' every interaction turns into an amazing adventure, and the people they meet along the trail are often desperate, pathetic, equally criminal, hysterically funny, and even touchingly humane. Those who loved True Grit for its pluck and sense of humor will also love The Sisters Brothers for those very same reasons. But while True Grit's foundation is biblical in nature, The Sisters Brothers appeal is in parts mystical and mythological.


The brothers' path ranges from sights of utter horror, to holding in their hands enormous riches few will ever behold. They must learn valuable lessons on what brotherhood means, and friendship, the possibility of love in a heartless world, and the thin line between rich and poor, life and death, salvation and perdition.


What do you say about a book that says so much about life while telling a story of brothers engaged in missions of death? I say this is a book well worth taking a look. Believe me, you don't want the Sisters brothers to come looking for you." 

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