The Sisters Brothers

All Available Formats + Editions

——

$9.99

NOOK Book

——

$9.99

The Sisters Brothers (eBook) Pub. Date: 4/26/2011 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
$8.51

$10.98

Paperback

$8.51

$10.98

The Sisters Brothers (Reprint) Pub. Date: 2/14/2012 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

$13.37

——

The Sisters Brothers Pub. Date: 5/28/2011 Publisher: Granta Books (UK)
$7.28

$13.43

Hardcover

$7.28

$13.43

The Sisters Brothers Pub. Date: 4/26/2011 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

$27.37

$30.99

The Sisters Brothers Pub. Date: 8/3/2011 Publisher: Gale Cengage Learning
$36.00

$18.25

Audiobook

——

$18.25

The Sisters Brothers (MP3 - Unabridged) Pub. Date: 4/26/2011 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

$36.00

——

The Sisters Brothers (CD) Pub. Date: 5/3/2011 Publisher: Dreamscape, LLC

Customers Who Bought This Also Bought

Advertising

Overview

Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die, and hired guns 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 goldmining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living—and whom he does it for.

Winner of the 2011 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction
Winner of the 2011 Writers' Trust of Canada Fiction Prize

Editorial Reviews

Anniston Star

“…quirky and ultimately touching…The Sisters Brothers will seem a cruel romp to some, but Patrick Dewitt has written more than that, leaving in our hands not just a warning about the American Dream but a primer on how to deal with its legacy.”

Austin Chronicle

“A twisted delight…Familiar, yes, but never not fresh. Also: creepy and sometimes inscrutable, gory with multiple amputations, rollicking and wistful and roundly winning.”

More Reviews (29) Fewer Reviews

BookPage

“[A] thrilling, smart and surprisingly touching read…visual and visceral…always compelling and surprising.”

Boston Globe

“A feast of delights in short punchy chapters.... Deliciously original and rhapsodically funny, this is one novel that ropes you in on page one, and isn’t about to ride off into the sunset any time soon.”

Capital Times

“…a heck of a lot of fun to read and surprisingly compelling when it ends.”

Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Mesmerizing… The book seduces us to its characters, and draws us on the strength of deWitt’s subtle, nothing-wasted prose. He writes with gorgeous precision about the grotesque: an amputation, a gouged eye, a con in a dive bar, a nauseating body count [without] macho brutishness.”

Critical Mob

“…a pitch-perfect page-turner…The Sisters Brothers… cleverly refreshes the classic western novel by injecting it with absurdity, offbeat humor, and elements of the picaresque…at once highly entertaining and strangely affecting.”

Daily Beast

“DeWitt’s THE SISTERS BROTHERS is a glorious picaresque Western; everything about this book is stylish, from its conceit to its cover design making it a truly worthy inclusion on the shortlist.”

Dallas Morning News

“[THE SISTERS BROTHERS] is full of surprises, among them…is the quirky beauty of the language Patrick deWitt has devised for his narrator.... THE SISTERS BROTHERS is deWitt’s second novel…and is an inventive and ingenious character study. It will make you impatient for the third.”

Denver Post

“Original, entrancing and entertaining.”

Esquire

“Thrilling…a lushly voiced picaresque story…so richly told, so detailed, that what emerges is a weird circus of existence, all steel shanks and ponies, gut shots and medication poured into the eyeholes of the dying. At some level, this too is a kind of revenge story, marvelously blurry.”

Good Reads

“This book is flat-out good times. Sarcastic, drunk, murderous cowboys...sign me up! ....Do yourself a favor and just read it.”

Los Angeles Times

“If Cormac McCarthy had a sense of humor, he might have concocted a story like Patrick DeWitt’s bloody, darkly funny western THE SISTERS BROTHERS...[DeWitt has] a skillfully polished voice and a penchant for gleefully looking under bloody bandages.”

Monday Mag

“If you’re looking for an unforgettable western, grab this one.”

New York Times Book Review

“…gritty, as well as deadpan and often very comic…DeWitt has chosen a narrative voice so sharp and distinctive…it’s very narrowing of possibilities opens new doors in the imagination.”

NPR.org

“By turns hilarious, graphic and meditative, The Sisters Brothers hooked me from page one all the way to 300 — and I could have stayed on for many more.”

Outside magazine

“Funny and strange [and] oddly warm…you’ll find yourself ashamedly pulling for the brothers Sisters like you did for Jules and Vinnie in Pulp Fiction.”

Philadelphia City Paper

“Cinematic, wry and mannered…. Just as much as THE SISTERS BROTHERS is about a killing, it’s also about the difficulty of holding on to or setting aside all the things a killer has to convince himself of to make his life palatable.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Sharp and wondrous…[a] funny, oddly moving novel.”

Portland Book Review

“Portland author Patrick DeWitt has hit on a sure-fire road to success.”

Roanoke Times

“A wickedly funny and innovative novel.”

The Faster Times

“A rollicking Western adventure…THE SISTERS BROTHERS…is a great success both in the “literary” sense of a beautiful written and emotionally compelling, and in the sense that it is a genuinely badass Western.”

The Millions

“DeWitt’s exploitations of the picaresque form are striking, and he has a wonderful way of exercising his comic gifts without ever compromising the novel’s gradual accumulation of darkness, disgust, and foreboding.”

The Onion AV Club

“The brothers’ punchily poetic banter and the book’s bracing bursts of violence keep this campfire yarn pulled taut.”

The Stranger

“Patrick deWitt’s latest novel, The Sisters Brothers [evokes]... a feeling you revel in the re-creation of even more than you would enjoy going back to the original experience at its source.”

Time Out New York

“Wandering his Western landscape with the cool confidence of a practiced pistoleer, deWitt’s steady hand belies a hair trigger, a poet’s heart and an acute sense of gallows humor…the reader is likely to reach the adventure’s end in the same shape as Eli: wounded but bettered by the ride.”

Washington Post

“Weirdly funny, startlingly violent and steeped in sadness… It’s all rendered irresistible by Eli Sisters, who narrates with a mixture of melancholy and thoughtfulness.”

Library Journal

This engrossing novel, set during the gold rush years of the 1850s, begins as a gritty, unapologetic homage to pulp Westerns (with perhaps a nod to Cormac McCarthy as well). In the final pages, however, as the hired guns at the center of the story are forced by circumstances to rethink their lives, the novel turns into something much more philosophical, existential, and extraordinary. The protagonists are two brothers, Eli and Charlie Sisters, widely known for their brutality. They are sent from Oregon City to California to kill an enemy of their boss, the mysterious Commodore. DeWitt (Ablutions) brings the saloons, the ratty frontier towns, and the West itself vividly to life here, and the large cast of colorful characters are skillfully drawn. It's the concluding pages, however, that give the novel its surprising integrity and power. It becomes, in effect, a different kind of novel, profoundly literary, and devoted to serious philosophical meditation. VERDICT Recommended for fans of Westerns and literary fiction.—Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT

Kirkus Reviews

A calmly vicious journey into avarice and revenge.

The unusual title refers to Charlie and Eli Sisters, the latter of whom narrates the novel. The narrative style is flat, almost unfeeling, though the action turns toward the cold-blooded. It's 1851, and the mysterious Commodore has hired the Sisters brothers to execute a man who's turned against him. The brothers start out from their home in Oregon City in search of the equally improbably named Hermann Kermit Warm. The hit has been set up by Henry Morris, one of the Commodore's minions, so the brothers set off for San Francisco, the last-known home of Warm. Along the way they have several adventures, including one involving a bear with an apple-red pelt. A man named Mayfield is supposed to pay them for this rare commodity but instead tries to cheat them, and the brothers calmly shoot four trappers who work for him. Charlie is the more sociopathic of the two, more addicted to women and brandy, while Eli, in contrast, is calmer, more rational, and even shows signs of wanting to give up the murder-for-hire business and settle down. But first, of course, they need to locate Warm. It turns out Morris has thrown in his lot with Warm, a crazed genius who has seemingly discovered a formula that helps locate gold—so much so that he can get in a day what it takes panners a month to glean. When they finally get to the gold-panners, the brothers wind up joining them, removing literally a bucket of gold from the stream. The caustic quality of Warm's formula leads to disaster, however, and Indians show up at an opportune moment to steal the gold.

DeWitt creates a homage to life in the Wild West but at the same time reveals its brutality.

Ron Charles

…[deWitt] rides parallel to the trails of Jack Shaefer, James Carlos Blake and Cormac McCarthy, but he frequently crosses into comic territory to produce a story that's weirdly funny, startlingly violent and steeped in sadness…As the novel runs along, deWitt shifts the story in unpredictable directions, slowing the pace for a surreal finale in the woods that's touched with alchemy.
—The Washington Post

The Barnes & Noble Review

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt is the best novel I have read in years. It is so perfectly in accord with my tastes and sensibilities that it immediately took a place on my list of favorite novels –– a set of twenty–five oddly assorted and constantly reshuffled works (among them novels by E. F. Benson, Sigrid Undset, Charles Portis, Dawn Powell, Flann O'Brien, and Evelyn Waugh). But I'm hardly alone ? the novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in Britain and won Canada's Governor General's Award, higher than which no book can climb in those northern parts.

The Sisters Brothers wears the booze–and–blood–soaked mask of a western and is set during the California Gold Rush. It stars two hired killers –– the brothers Charlie and Eli Sisters –– and is punctuated by sixteen men shot dead, two poisoned, one drowned, and the report of another axed to death by his own hand. The death count further includes two bears, two horses, one dog, and nine beavers. Despite this carnage, the novel possesses the unlikely virtues of kindliness and understated humor, qualities that arise out of the sedate, ingenuous delivery of the story's narrator, Eli. He is the younger though beefier brother, a gentle, homespun philosopher (and killer) whom Charlie, a domineering, conscience–free brandy bibber, treats as his stooge.

When we meet the two, they are in the employ of a man called the Commodore and are setting out from Oregon City on a mission to California to murder a prospector, Herman Kermit Warm, who has got on the wrong side of their boss. Terrible details of their last venture soon emerge, not the least of them being that their horses were burned to death. Eli has now been consigned to Tub, a "portly and low–backed" horse whom he has to beat to keep moving. ("Tub believed me cruel and thought to himself, Sad life, sad life.")

Eli, too, is sad and profoundly lonely; his only intimate, aside from Tub –– for which unhappy creature he develops a melancholy loyalty –– is his brother. That relationship, despite occasional rays of amity, is not much comfort given the man's know–it–all bossiness and predilection for drink. In a typical scene we find Charlie heading into a saloon: "He invited me along," Eli tells us, "and though I did not much want to watch him grow hoggish with brandy I likewise did not wish to spend my time in the hotel room by myself, with its warped wallpaper, its drafts and dust and scent of previous boarders. The creak of bed springs suffering under the weight of a restless man is as lonely a sound as I know."

Bickering incessantly, the brothers encounter a number of obstacles to their progress, including Charlie's serial hangovers, a spider bite and tooth abscess that almost kill Eli, and problems with Tub. Early on, the poor horse is attacked by a grizzly who savages his eye; but he has a doughty heart. "Despite Tub's eye wound he never so much as stumbled," Eli tells us, "and I felt for the first time that we knew and understood each other; I sensed in him a desire to improve himself, which perhaps was whimsy or wishful thinking on my part, but such are the musings of the travelling man."

The brothers ride across territory marked with occasional signs of those who have traveled before them on their own roads to ruin. A sense of desolation and abandonment pervades the land; even in the towns, disillusion and hectic desperation prevail. The Old West of The Sisters Brothers is a phantasmagorical netherworld populated by the lost and the damned: a weeping man, an abandoned boy, a witch, a terrible little girl, degraded women, mad prospectors, and bands of killers. There would seem to be something of the allegory about all this, especially as the lust for gold is the force that has given the landscape its dark glare. But the novel's fine literary qualities operate against allegory's oppressive portentousness and self regard: deWitt's prose combines decorum with limberness; details of material life are vivid and concrete; and the brothers' actual predicament, characters, and relationship with each other are central to the story and humanely developed.

Above all, the novel is very funny. Its humor is deadpan and almost ineffable at times in its adroit mismatching of elements, of good heart and dreadful deed; even its title evokes this peculiar strain of incongruity. The Sisters Brothers is a great and wonderful novel by a man still in his thirties, a writer from whom I hope we will see much more.

Katherine A. Powers reviews books widely and has been a finalist for the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing from the National Book Critics Circle.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780062041265
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 4/26/2011
Pages: 336
Sales rank: 15,361
Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.10 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Patrick deWitt is the author of the critically acclaimed Ablutions: Notes for a Novel. Born in British Columbia, he has also lived in California, Washington, and Oregon, where he currently resides with his wife and son.

Read an Excerpt

The Sisters Brothers

A Novel

By Patrick DeWitt

Ecco

Chapter One

I was sitting outside the Commodore's mansion, waiting
for my brother Charlie to come out with news of the job. It was
threatening to snow and I was cold and for want of something
to do I studied Charlie's new horse, Nimble. My new horse was
called Tub. We did not believe in naming horses but they were
given to us as partial payment for the last job with the names
intact, so that was that. Our unnamed previous horses had been
immolated, so it was not as though we did not need these new
ones but I felt we should have been given money to purchase
horses of our own choosing, horses without histories and habits
and names they expected to be addressed by. I was very fond
of my previous horse and lately had been experiencing visions
while I slept of his death, his kicking, burning legs, his hot-
popping eyeballs. He could cover sixty miles in a day like a gust
of wind and I never laid a hand on him except to stroke him or
clean him, and I tried not to think of him burning up in that
barn but if the vision arrived uninvited how was I to guard
against it? Tub was a healthy enough animal but would have
been better suited to some other, less ambitious owner. He was
portly and low-backed and could not travel more than fifty miles
in a day. I was often forced to whip him, which some men do
not mind doing and which in fact some enjoy doing, but which I
did not like to do; and afterward he, Tub, believed me cruel and
thought to himself, Sad life, sad life.
I felt a weight of eyes on me and looked away from Nimble.
Charlie was gazing down from the upper-story window, holding
up five fingers. I did not respond and he distorted his face to
make me smile; when I did not smile his expression fell slack
and he moved backward, out of view. He had seen me watching
his horse, I knew. The morning before I had suggested we
sell Tub and go halves on a new horse and he had agreed this
was fair but then later, over lunch, he had said we should put it
off until the new job was completed, which did not make sense
because the problem with Tub was that he would impede the
job, so would it not be best to replace him prior to? Charlie had a
slick of food grease in his mustache and he said, 'After the job is
best, Eli.' He had no complaints with Nimble, who was as good
or better than his previous horse, unnamed, but then he had had
first pick of the two while I lay in bed recovering from a leg
wound received on the job. I did not like Tub but my brother was
satisfied with Nimble. This was the trouble with the horses.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt Copyright © 2011 by Patrick DeWitt. Excerpted by permission of Ecco. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4

( 71 )

Rating Distribution

5 Star

(29)

4 Star

(23)

3 Star

(11)

2 Star

(5)

1 Star

(3)

Your Rating:

Review Guidelines

Tell the world what you think of this product.

Add Recommendations

Your Name: Create a Pen Name or Leave Anonymously

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

- HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
- Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
- Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
- Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
- Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
- Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
- Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

- By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
- Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
- See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.

TheAnonymousDude

Posted August 4, 2011

Good book, but . . . eh

I really like this book, but towards the end it gets kind of . . . eh. It sets up an interesting relationship between two brothers employed as wild west hit men. We meet interesting characters and situations on a long journey. Moral dilemmas are explored. But then it turns kind of western sci-fi and everything goes to heck in a hurry until it ends kind of . . . eh. Everything feels kind of rushed through once the premise is crafted. I think this should have been a longer book, or better yet a series of books. Too late now, and what do I know anyway? So, I kind of wishy washy recommend it.

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Valca85

Posted June 20, 2011

A riot

What a peculiar story this was. At first, I won't lie, the western theme was not a huge selling point for me. Hesitation was rampant. As soon as I started reading, however, I fell in love with the entire setting.
The book is mainly an adventure story. Since the characters are killers hired by a mysterious man call the Commodore, the reader expects lots of action, lots of gun-slinging scenes, but there aren't many of those at all. If any. And that's what makes this book work so well, it breaks away from every stereotype. The characters are rugged yet vulnerable, with a penchant for depression and melancholy. Eli, the narrator, has a soft spot for his handicapped horse and Charlie, Eli's brother, has a need to be the leader at all times.
Their misadventures were hilarious. Nothing seemed to go right for the two brothers. The bond between them is well developed, with the usual ups and downs that siblings experience, only with guns and horses added to the mix. Some scenes had me laughing out loud at the madness. At moments it felt like a comedy skit.
Don't make the mistake of not picking this book up because of the seemingly cowboy-ish theme, this is definitely a book to own and enjoy.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
harstan

Posted March 22, 2011

more from this reviewer

This is a strong pre Civil War western thriller

In 1851 the Commodore directs his vicious hired guns Charlie and Eli Sisters to kill prospector Hermann Kermit Warm. The siblings head from Oregon City through San Francisco to Sierra foothills where Warm has a Gold mining claim.

Their trek south is wrought with danger and adventures whether it is in the wilderness or the saloons. From a witch who curses the duo to drunken females who entice them, The Sisters brothers are starting to understand human existence is more than just birth and death as they elude a horde of fur trappers out to kill them.

This is a strong pre Civil War western thriller starring two interesting brothers. The key to the insightful look at the underbelly of the Pacific coast circa 1850s story line is how the readers' attitude towards the Sisters changes through the course of the tale. Initially, the siblings seem like brutal cold killers (Liberty Valance comes to mind). Soon as their back story becomes known; as well as the affectionate caring for one another and Eli's tenderness to a woman surface, fans realize there is more to the brothers in this super mid nineteenth century Americana.

Harriet Klausner

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
books4gail

Posted June 1, 2011

more from this reviewer

I Also Recommend:

Nothing I did not like about this book

I passed this gem several times on the shelf before the graphic quality of the cover grabbed me. I was hooked from the first page. The language will remind you of True Grit and the humor crackles crisp. Good ol' Eli Sisters and his horse, women, ailments and dental hygiene. Great Father's Day gift but Mom will want to read it too.

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Hometownulysses

Posted May 13, 2011

more from this reviewer

A Coen-esque Western to kick-off summer reading.

I read this book as an early summer read, and as that it does not disappoint. The narrator is a complex, some-what sympathetic killer whose burgeoning compassion and self-awareness gives the story much humor and depth. One review likened the story to "The Odyssey" and I find that very fitting. The brothers come across a whole range of interesting characters and episodes that all leave a lasting impression on the reader. If anything, I wish some of the characters and episodes were flushed out more, because the short scenes are sometimes too quick for my taste. The dialogue came off a little affected, but I got used to the style. The ending felt a little sprawling and I'm still not sure how to feel about it, but overall the book is a quick, enjoyable read that feels like a modern story set in the Old West. I could see it being made into a film by the Coen brothers.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted April 26, 2012

Good Read

The narrator is entertaining in a subtle way. The author builds a character that's endearing and dangerous and not at all fussy. His relationship with his brother is interesting. It takes a while to get consumed by the story, but it turns into a spirited read. I wouldn't hesitate to read again and again.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
AnnieMT

Posted April 24, 2012

Great read with many twists. The writing was at first hard to fo

Great read with many twists. The writing was at first hard to follow but quickly turned into an endearing language of thoughts and words between two brothers who were not nearly as different as they seemed on the surface. It was written from brother Eli’s perspective who appeared to be the more sensitive hired killer, who loved his broken down one eyed horse and was a bit obsessive about his dental hygiene. The author brought it all together nicely at the end with a surprising bonding between the most unlikely characters.
It was a choice of one of my book club members and one I would have never picked on my own. I recommend it highly

Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted March 22, 2012

Great Writing

This book was one enjoyable read. The book rates right up there with True Grit. The author managed to make me smile and grimace at the same time. His characters are human and flawed which makes them perfect to read about. Loved it.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
CatCT

Posted February 18, 2012

Nothing to write home about

Apparently not my style of humor because I found very little to even smile about. I found it somewhat ridiculous, but kept reading to the end for some reason - maybe just hoping I would magically "get" it. Many better books out there.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted February 4, 2012

irony and iron-y strong

quirky and compelling. It stayed with me for awhile. I liked it. had to read it twice.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
grandmapenny

Posted February 3, 2012

A Gobsmacking read.

I haven't read a book like The Sisters Brothers in a long time. There was so much to enjoy: the voice of the storyteller, the total unpredictability of the tale and the crazy story itself. Loved it.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted January 30, 2012

Gunslingers and the California Gold Rush

A quirky little book, but a good read! A different kind of western, takes place during the California Gold Rush.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted January 29, 2012

Quirky but very intresting

Very good read. The prose is magical in places through out.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
pen21

Posted January 25, 2012

more from this reviewer

Western

The Sisters Brothers is about 2 brothers who are hit men. The setting is a western. My interest in the story didn't happen right away. The two brothers are very different but both very violent. The story does go back into their childhood giving us insight into how their characters were developed.
(2 out of 5)
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
escapeartistDD

Posted January 15, 2012

not recommended

I was very disappointed. The plot was bad. i.e. kills 5 men and 5 horses for an axe that wasn't needed. People were killed without reason. And the author tried to show how nice and misunderstood the brothers were. And the end was bad also.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
tricemo

Posted January 15, 2012

so so

Hard to follow story - didn't flow
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Anonymous

Posted January 8, 2012

Amazingly written

I couldn't put this book down. The characters were well developed and I love the writers style. I am not usually a reader of westerns but this one was truely great. Give it a try. You wont be sorry.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
MalteseFalcon

Posted October 31, 2011

A western in the non-traditional sense.

No wonder this book was a candidate for the Mann Booker Award. If you like Zane Grey you won't like this book but a better western you haven't read. The characters are well drawn and the story line is not at all what you'd expect. The books dialogue fits the characters to a T.

If I said anything else it would spoil it for the reader. Pick it up; you won't put it down until the end.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
bobinbc

Posted October 26, 2011

good book

A well written story, certainly worth of Giller Prize consideration and even first prize. Buy it and enjoy the read

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
CasitaQueen

Posted October 10, 2011

If you liked the TV series *Deadwood*, you will love this book

Eli and Charlie Sisters are hired killers.
Story takes place during the California Gold Rush, in and around an overpriced, amoral, brutal, dirty and depressing San Francisco.

I did not like Deadwood, so I only appreciated parts of the story (Eli's ongoing quest to find personal meaning and fulfillment in his life) and the fact that it was very well written.

My husband, who did like Deadwood, could not put it down or stop recommending it to everyone he knows.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble

The Sisters Brothers

Pick Up in Store

Available on NOOK devices and apps

All Available Formats + Editions

Customers Who Bought This Also Bought

More About This Book

Overview

Related Subjects

Editorial Reviews

Anniston Star

Austin Chronicle

BookPage

Boston Globe

Capital Times

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Critical Mob

Daily Beast

Dallas Morning News

Denver Post

Esquire

Good Reads

Los Angeles Times

Monday Mag

New York Times Book Review

NPR.org

Outside magazine

Philadelphia City Paper

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Portland Book Review

Roanoke Times

The Faster Times

The Millions

The Onion AV Club

The Stranger

Time Out New York

Washington Post

Library Journal

Kirkus Reviews

Ron Charles

The Barnes & Noble Review

Product Details

Meet the Author

Read an Excerpt

The Sisters Brothers

Ecco

Chapter One

Customer Reviews

Rating Distribution

5 Star

4 Star

3 Star

2 Star

1 Star

Your Rating:

Your Recommendations:

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

What to exclude from your review:

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

Reminder:

Recommend other products that relate to your review. Just search for them below and share!

Good book, but . . . eh

A riot

This is a strong pre Civil War western thriller

Nothing I did not like about this book

A Coen-esque Western to kick-off summer reading.

Good Read

Great read with many twists. The writing was at first hard to fo

Great Writing

Nothing to write home about

irony and iron-y strong

A Gobsmacking read.

Gunslingers and the California Gold Rush

Quirky but very intresting

Western

not recommended

so so

Amazingly written

A western in the non-traditional sense.

good book

If you liked the TV series Deadwood, you will love this book