The Sisters Brothers: A Novel
By: Patrick deWitt / Narrated By: John Pruden
Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
Nooooot what I was hoping for, but gosh: John Pruden? Is that YOU?!?
First, lemme just get the narration outta the way:
I AM fond of John Pruden, have a gazillion and six of his narrations in m’ Library, but the thing is? Dude, it’s pretty much all Nonfiction or Military. I’m soooo used to his stern tones relaying death, gore, and a no-nonsense take-no-prisoners sorta mayhem, that I reeeeally went into The Sisters Brothers befuddled and with low expectations. Pruden? Doing Fiction?
Welllll, okaaaay. Maaaybe… But then I considered that this audiobook is a kinda sorta Western, and the concept grew on me. Because, after all, the man rather sounds like he has a John Wayne-ish sorta swagger to him. Neat when one muses that this “genre-bending” story is s’POSed to follow two guns-for-hire killers out loose in the West.
And boy, does Pruden do well, or what? Cuz this book has it all: Our two main characters, Eli and Charlie Sisters, witches casting hexes, cunning homely women, even MORE cunning saloon whores, and a whole LOTTA people frantic, and either gunning people down, or begging for their lives. Male, female, Pruden reeeeally took me by surprise.
So what I liked, when all has been said and done, were both the narration… and the writing… The story? Well, I rather found it to be somewhat lacking, esPECially when compared with the STELLAR Cowboy/Westerns that were also on m’ plate for this week.
No, no, nope; not gonna compare various stories/plotlines, but am simply going to say that author Patrick deWitt sure can make his keyboard sing, but danged if he can’t quite manage to develop the characters very well. We follow the Sisters Brothers on their journey, and it’s really quite a bit of one, but then it goes off and gets wrapped up all in the last few minutes of the book.
Eli and Charlie Sisters work for a ruthless man known only as The Commodore, and right away on this job to murder one Hermann Kermit Warm, things are going poorly for Eli. You see, Charlie has been put in charge, and the Brothers are no longer equals. This doesn’t sit too well with Eli, our narrator, and throughout the entirety of this book, we see that the two are NOT interchangeable. Charlie is cold-blooded and avaricious, and Eli SOMEtimes gives things/murders/life a second thought.
As a matter of fact, there are PLENty of thoughts written down here with prose and musings that can be somewhat flowery. Turns out, this book is sometimes a contemplation of life and the purpose behind our own actions, and it’s sometimes about everyday morality. I read a few reviews wherein said reviewer(s) RAVED about the symbolism and imagery, and I could but scratch m’ head and go: Whazza? Yup, totally dense here but, while I appreciated the quality of the perpetually flowery language, and while I enjoyed the highfalutin thoughts of stone cold killers, I couldn’t find, and did not wanna LOOK for symbolism.
Which brings me to the book’s greatest problem: Every. Single. Person sounds the same. It would’ve been vastly more amusing if such fine language came only from two men about ready to slit someone’s throat, pausing to ponder Life and its inequities, but to have each person spout such fine stuff? Oy! I could only tell someone new was speaking because Pruden did a stellar job of differentiating between sinners and even bigger sinners.
Nary a saint to be found. Tho’ nearing the end, we were given a look at friendship between avaricious characters.
And then it all ended, with a mega-switcheroo, as tho’ deWitt had about had enough with the purple prose and wanted to rap it all up.
All in all, this woulda been sooo much better had I NOT listened to such truly enjoyable Cowboy/Westerns this week. So give it a try IF?
Ya wanna hear The Man’s Man, John Pruden, convey two amoral beasts cogitating on Life, as they gut their way outta messes and mayhem. I smiled, but alas, I didn’t laugh.
PS? A dog gets poisoned, and they scrape a horse’s eyeball outta its head with a spoon without a second thought. Okay, so sometimes I didn’t even smile...
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.