The Sisters Brothers

Eli and Charlie Sisters, two notorious criminals working out in the gold-rush era Wild West, are tasked with finding and killing a man. They ride 1000 miles across the desert to track him down.

Told in the first person through Eli’s perspective, it’s hard not to think of True Grit when reading this, at least at the outset. However, it’s more of a picaresque novel that is content to meander without much of an aim and bask in its momentary blow-by-blow accounts of cheap thrills.

I loved it for that, and it’s no surprise they made a movie out of it.

Eli is a good character to have as a companion through the novel, earnest and insightful and just about aware of his limitations. There’s lots of charm and humour in his unpretentious eloquence and clarity of thinking.

A bloody good time.