The Sisters Brothers

The Sisters Brothers 

by Patrick deWitt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“I lay in the dark thinking about the difficulties of family, how crazy and crooked the stories of a bloodline can be.” 

“Here is another miserable mental image I will have to catalog and make room for.” 

This was an odd book. Charlie and Eli Sisters are hired guns in the American west of the gold-rush era and their very name strikes fear into everyone (seemed patterned on the James brothers). Through the novel we follow them on a particular job through the eyes of Eli Sisters who is having an identity crisis. The tone is very spare and noir-ish and the characters of old Westerns are all there. The relationship of the men and their horses is a big part of the story as well. 
Patrick deWitt was born in British Columbia so I am counting this toward the Canadian Book Challenge.