I think this was one of those rare times where I actually
purchased a trade paperback brand new, jumping on the bandwagon with this much hyped novel. I remember how the CBC and The Globe & Mail heaped praise on this book as the author is Canadian.
Even Olman remembered
the hype when he came across a a free copy several years later and decided to give it a go. Thank goodness for that as I can just link to his review of it here (yay to retroactive reviews).
I’m trying to remember if I had ever read a real Western. I don’t think I have, so this is the only
book that comes close, though I'm not sure whether it counts as one. Like how Speculative Fiction is
high literature for the Sci-Fi genre, The Sisters
Brothers is like Spec Fic for Westerns.
I really quite enjoyed this book. It had everything it was supposed to have in an award-winning 'literary western' of this calibre. The brothers made a flawed yet charismatic pair tossing witty exchanges at each other, the plot had some bad guys, the story was engaging with the right
amount of humour, action, and romance all delivered via high quality writing.
… and this was the beginning of our new brotherhood, with Charlie never again to be the one so far ahead, and me following clumsily behind, which is not to say the roles were reversed, but destroyed. Afterward, and even today, we are careful in our relationship, as though fearful of upsetting each other. In terms of our previous manner of correspondence I cannot say why it vanished suddenly then, snuffed as it was like a candle. Of course the moment it passed I became fond of it in a sorrowful kind of way, at least in theory or maudlin memory. But the question has entered my mind so many times: Whatever became of my bold brother? I can never say, only that he was gone and has yet to return.
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I brought this book with me during our vacation in Vancouver, where we visited friends in Lasqueti Island. Not surprisingly, they had read this too.
