Musings: The Sisters Brothers

Patrick deWitt's novel The Sisters Brothers has gotten a lot of attention since its publication.  Not only does it have a seriously awesome cover (seriously awesome), but it also made it to the Booker Prize long list.  And it's a western!

So, what's the book about?  Quite frankly, I'm not sure.  I swear, this time I really paid attention to the audiobook.  The narrator is fantastic, with this dry, droll voice who doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humor but captures the tone of Eli perfectly.  But even after spending 7+ hours listening to Eli Sister narrate this tale, I don't quite know what the book is about.

Eli is the narrator - he's a chubby hit man who has followed his older brother Charlie around his whole life.  But on their latest job, Eli starts to have a change of heart.  He doesn't want to kill for a living.  He wants to settle down with a good woman (though he doesn't seem to have the best taste in women) and open some sort of store.  The story meanders through the frontier as the brothers search for their newest target - the only problem is, once they find him, Eli realizes that he quite likes the guy.

Eli has a fantastic narrative voice.  He has serious vulnerabilities - he misses his mom, wishes his brother would drink less, and is saddened every time he realizes that a woman has not lived up to the ideals he set for her.  His horse, Tubs, is pretty useless, but he does everything he can to make life comfortable for him.  Eli is pretty much the blueprint for the "former bad boy/rake/villain/gangster who is trying to reform himself/turn over a new leaf/leave his reputation behind," etc.

The book felt to me like more a series of vignettes than one cohesive story.  A lot of things happen that are not very related  to each other.  I didn't mind this, really, because Eli is such an engaging narrator.  But I was surprised that the book ended where it did, mostly because I thought there was so much else that could still happen to the characters.  I'd love to know how the rest of Eli's life went, if he was able to stay on the straight and narrow like he wished. 

I am not sure that there is higher praise for me to give this book than to say that the audiobook version kept my attention the whole way through.  That does not happen often, I tell ya.  While this book wasn't exactly what I expected (though I didn't really have expectations going into it, I admit), it was a lot of fun to listen to, and Eli was so wonderful to get to know.  Yet another book that proves that, for me, characters > plot.