The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt (2011 Booker Shortlist)

The Sisters Brothers surprised me. I normally don’t read Westerns. I normally hate violence. BUT, I do love noir movies and fiction, and I would definitely categorize The Sisters Brothers as noir.  I would love to see this as a movie, but I also would hope that the atmosphere of the book could be captured effectively on screen.

Two brothers, Charlie and Eli Sisters, are hit men. One of them relishes in it; the other dreams about getting out of it. Both are great at it and are known and feared for it. It’s a tale of violence and greed, but also the story of the hope for redemption.

Some quotes:

The rough estimate of these riches was set at fifteen thousand dollars; my take of this more than tripled my savings, and as we left the musty basement, heading up the stairs and into the light, 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 a thing in our world, after all.

and

My very center was beginning to expand, as it always did before violence, a toppled pot of black ink covering the frame of my mind, its contents ceaseless, unaccountably limitless. My flesh and scalp started to ring and tingle and I became someone other than myself, or I became my second self, and this person was highly pleased to be stepping from the murk and into the living world where he might do just as he wished. I I felt at once both lust and disgrace and wondered, Why do I relish this reversal to animal? … Shame, I thought. Shame and blood and degradation.

I’m really glad I read The Sisters Brothers, and I have the Booker shortlist to thank for it. I do love it when I enjoy a read that is completely unexpected.

Shortlisted for both the Man Booker Prize and the Giller Prize.

2011, 325 pp.

FTC Disclosure: I obtained this book through my local public library.