The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

This book has been on my to read this for a couple years now. It was featured in a book club show that I enjoyed and sounded intriguing. I largely forgot about it, but managed to pick it up again the last few months.

The writing is dry. Very dry. It’s clipped and not overly descriptive. It takes a bit of getting use to or maybe that was because I hadn’t read a novel in over a month when I picked t up.

The novel is about two hit men in the old west. It is violent. It is also quite sad at times. The descriptions and writing about the horses pained me the most. On the other hand, there was some extremely dry and dark humour which made me laugh a couple of times. I have a dry and deadpan sense of humour too.

I definitely think the book had its moments verging on beauty. The ending left me a bit dissatisfied though as it is the sort of ending that just happens. It leaves you wondering about the characters afterwards. There were moments where I did not feel very engaged to the story. I would not recommend it to a lot of people I know since the style is very distinct. I did not mind it, but I did not like this book as much as I had hoped.

February 26-27 2014.

2 thoughts on “The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

  • Susan

    I know this novel was well received in Canada but it intimidates me! I think it’s the dryness that you talk about. Perhaps I wouldn’t get through it. But I admire you read it.
    ps. I’m thinking of changing from Drupal to WordPress, b/c it might be easier etc. You like WP right? Would it be a good change?

    Reply
    • athena (Post author)

      Hi Susan! Yes, the author is a Canadian who new resides in the US so it did well in the awards. It is really dry and quite violent. It’s quite masculine and aggressive that way. I did not find it easy to get through either because of the prose style. As for the CMS change, I do like WP. I’ve used it for many years and it is much more user friendly than Drupal. I do not mind Drupal to be honest and I use it every day at work. For simple blogs though, I think WP and its plugins are more than enough. I just caution you to backup your posts and find the right plugins to go from Drupal to WP. Good luck!

      Reply

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