'The Sisters Brothers is so perfect and wonderful that I can’t imagine picking up another book for a while. There’s just no point. ... The author, Patrick deWitt, is going to be a big deal. A very big deal. If you haven’t picked up his last book, Ablutions, then I suggest you do so immediately. You’ll never read another book that opens up into a dark place with such gentleness and care. The Sisters Brothers is a western, a dark comedy, and you could compare it to so many other big name authors like Robert Olmstead, Cormac McCarthy, Mark Twain, or Charles Portis. But to tell the truth, dissecting what makes this book great is like taking apart a plasma TV: I’d have all these parts that are clearly important, but I don’t have the mastery to really explain how they work or to put them back together for you. Have some guts, take a chance, and just read the book. It is my personal and professional opinion that you need to. Trust me.' -- Helpful Snowman Books
'When, at the age of seventeen I decided I would spend my life writing fiction. I didn't know what this entailed, exactly - a room, I supposed. A room and books and paper and solitude. Looking for encouragement, I discussed the newfound commitment with my school counselor; she nodded, doodling on her notepad, then spoke of a youthful fondness for poetry. At last she suggested I take over my father's construction business, then sent me back to my English class, which I was close to flunking. Soon after this I dropped out of high school and moved to British Columbia, Canada. Here I found the room, and the books, the paper, and the solitude. With a charmless bachelor's countless hours up for grabs, I kept myself occupied for over a decade learning or trying to learn how to write. -- Patrick deWitt, from Books Aren't Dying
______
Motion
Patrick deWitt's "The Bastard" - An Electric Literature Single Sentence Animation
Lee Boudreaux, Executive Editor at Ecco, discusses THE SISTERS BROTHERS (Patrick deWitt) and THE FATES WILL FIND THEIR WAY (Hannah Pittard)
Trailer: Azazel Jacobs' 'Terri', screenplay by Patrick deWitt
Trailer: Patrick deWitt's 'Ablutions'
Trailer: Patrick deWitt's 'Help Yourself Help Yourself'
_______
Interview
from Sonora Review & The Roaring '20s
How long, approximately, would you say you’ve been writing?
Patrick deWitt: I’ve been at it since I was 17, with a year lost here and there to your typical devil’s workshop/self-immolation type stuff. I’ve been reading with what could be called diligence or seriousness since about 14.
What was the research like for The Sisters Brothers? Did libraries play a role?
PdW: I looked things up occasionally and as I needed them, either at the library or online, and my father loaned or bought me books, and in fact continues in spite of my protests to buy me books about the Gold Rush, but really, the research was minimal. It was more something I resorted to rather than something I immersed myself in. But I knew it wasn’t going to be a history-heavy book from the start, because that’s not the kind of thing that interests me as a reader.
How did the diction of traditional westerns inform your writing?
PdW: Not much at all, because I haven’t read very many westerns. People may have actually talked like this in 1851, but I doubt it. It’s a bit of a fantastic world, really, despite the occasional historical accuracy.
What are your feelings on “writing on writing”?
PdW: Suspicious but perversely fascinated.
Ever read the advice other authors give?
PdW: If it’s someone whose work I’ve admired, of course it’s interesting to know their thoughts, and the gory details of their process. But more often I find myself being told what I must never do by someone whose writing I’m not moved by. This can actually be constructive in that all you have to do to make use of the advice is reverse it.
Do you have some advice to give?
PdW: You can get away with murder if you love and respect your ideal reader.
Who is your favorite author of the moment, and what should we read by them?
PdW: I’m decades late to this, but I just discovered Gilbert Sorrentino. I’m working through his books but my favorite so far is Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things. A good example of what I mean by getting away with murder – charmed me completely.
________
Resources
Patrick deWitt Official Website
Patrick deWitt's US Book Tour: Dates & Info
'The Sisters Brothers' @ Goodreads
'A drink with Patrick deWitt' @ Dogmatika
The first chapter of Patrick deWitt's 'Ablutions' @ NYT
'Down and Out in LA: Patrick deWitt Comes Home' @ LA Weekly
Podcast: Story Time/Ep #3/Patrick deWitt
Largehearted Boy's Book Notes: Patrick deWitt's 'Ablutions'
Buy Patrick deWitt's 'The Sisters Brothers'
____
Book
Patrick deWitt The Sisters BrothersEcco
'Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn't share his brother's appetite for whiskey and killing, he's never known anything else. But their prey isn't an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm's gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living–and whom he does it for.
'With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters–losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of life–and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.
'Set against the back-drop of the great California Gold Rush, this odd and wonderful tour de force at once honors and reshapes the traditional western while chronicling the picaresque misadventures of two hired guns, the fabled Sisters brothers. The most original western since the Coen Brothers re-interpreted True Grit—you’ve never met anyone quite like The Sisters Brothers.' -- Ecco
______
Excerpt
from Vice Magazine
OREGON CITY, 1851
PART ONE: TROUBLE WITH THE HORSES
I was sitting outside the Commodore’s mansion, waiting for my brother Charlie to come out with news of the job. It was threatening to snow and I was cold and for want of something to do I studied Charlie’s new horse Nimble. My new horse was called Tub. We did not believe in naming horses but they were given to us as partial payment for the last job with the names intact, so that was that. Our unnamed previous horses had been immolated, so it was not as though we did not need these new ones, but I felt we should have been given money to purchase horses of our own choosing, horses without histories and habits and names they expected to be addressed by. I was very fond of my previous horse and had lately been experiencing visions while I slept of his death, his kicking, burning legs, his hot-popping eyeballs. He could cover sixty miles in a day like a gust of wind and I never laid a hand on him except to stroke him or clean him, and I tried not to think of him burning up in that barn but if the vision arrived uninvited how was I to guard against it? Tub was a healthy enough animal but would have been better suited to some other, less ambitious owner. He was portly and low-backed and could not travel more than fifty miles in a day. I was often forced to whip him, which some men do not mind doing and which in fact some enjoy doing, but which I did not like to do and afterward he, Tub, believed me cruel and thought to himself, Sad life, sad life.
I felt a weight of eyes on me and looked away from Nimble. Charlie was gazing down from the upper-story window, holding up five fingers. I did not respond and he distorted his face to make me smile; when I did not smile his expression fell slack and he moved backwards, out of view. He had seen me watching his horse, I knew. The morning before I had suggested we sell Tub and go halves on a new horse and he had agreed this was fair but then later, over lunch, he said we should put it off until the new job was completed, which did not make sense because the problem with Tub was that he would impede the job, so would it not be best to replace him prior to? Charlie had a slick of food grease in his mustache and he told me, “After the job is best, Eli.” He had no complaints with Nimble, who was as good or better than his previous horse, unnamed, but then he had had first pick of the two while I lay in bed recovering from a leg wound received on the job. I did not like Tub but my brother was satisfied with Nimble. This was the trouble with the horses.
Charlie climbed onto Nimble and we rode away, heading for the Pig-King. It had been only two months since our last visit to Oregon City but I counted five new businesses on the main street and each of these appeared to be doing well. “An ingenious species,” I said to Charlie, who made no reply. We sat at a table in the back of the King and were brought our usual bottle and a pair of glasses. Charlie poured me a drink, when normally we pour our own, so I was prepared for bad news when he said it: “I’m to be lead man on this one, Eli.”
“Who says so?”
“Commodore says so.”
I drank my brandy. “What’s it mean?”
“It means I am in charge.”
“What’s it mean about money?”
“More for me.”
“My money, I mean. Same as before?”
“It’s less for you.”
“I don’t see the sense in it.”
“Commodore says there wouldn’t have been the problems with the last job if there had been a lead man.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, it does.”
He poured me another drink and I drank it. As much to myself as to Charlie I said, “He wants to pay for a lead man, that’s fine. But it’s bad business to short the man underneath. I got my leg gouged out and my horse burnt to death working for him.”
“I got my horse burnt to death too. He got us new horses.”
“It’s bad business. Stop pouring for me like I’m an invalid.” I took the bottle away and asked about the specifics of the job. We were to find and kill a prospector in California named Hermann Kermit Warm. Charlie produced a letter from his jacket pocket, this from the Commodore’s scout, a dandy named Morris who often went ahead of us to gather information: “Have studied Warm for many days, and can offer the following in respects to his habits and character. He is solitary in nature but spends long hours in the San Francisco saloons, passing time reading his science and mathematics books or making drawings in their margins. He hauls these tomes around with a strap like a schoolboy, for which he is mocked. He is small in stature, which adds to this comedy, but beware he will not be teased about his size. I have seen him fight several times, and though he typically loses, I do not think any of his opponents would wish to fight him again. He is not above biting, for example. He is bald-headed, with a wild red beard, long, gangly arms, and the protruded belly of a pregnant woman. He washes infrequently and sleeps where he can—barns, doorways, or if need be, in the streets. Whenever he is engaged to speak his manner is brusque and uninviting. He carries a baby dragoon, this tucked into a sash slung around his waist. He does not drink often, but when he finally lifts his bottle, he lifts it to become completely drunken. He pays for his whiskey with raw gold dust that he keeps in a leather pouch worn on a long string, this hidden in the folds of his many-layered clothing. He has not once left the town since I have been here and I do not know if he plans to return to his claim, which sits some ten miles east of Sacramento (map enclosed). Yesterday in a saloon he approached me for a match, addressing me politely and by name. I have no idea how he learned this, for he never seemed to notice that I was following him. When I asked how he had come to learn my identity he became abusive, and I left. I do not care for him, though there are some that say his mind is uncommonly strong. I will admit he is unusual, but that is perhaps the closest I could come to complimenting him.”
Next to the map of Warm’s claim, Morris had made a smudged drawing of the man; but he might have been standing at my side and I would not have known it, it was so clumsy a rendering. I mentioned this to Charlie and he said, “Morris is waiting for us at a hotel in San Francisco. He will point Warm out and we will be on our way. It’s a good place to kill someone, I have heard. When they are not busily burning the entire town down, they are distracted by its endless rebuilding.”
(continued)
----
*
p.s. Hey. Today's a really good day because it lives in celebration of the amazing writer Patrick deWitt, who also just happens to be one of this blog's longtime d.l.s, and whose brand new novel (see: above) is newly out and about, and, speaking a reader who is poring through its final few chapters as we speak, I can assure you that it's really fantastic, a knock out, a total literary coup that is waiting patiently for you. Enjoy and buy, I say. Oh, if you're in or around LA tonight, the incredibly great and visionary French writer Pierre Guyotat is reading from and discussing his work (with Sylvère Lotringer) at Schindler House at 7:30 pm in support of his sublime novel 'Coma', which Semiotext(e) published in the States last year. Guyotat in LA is literally a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I can't recommend that you be there highly enough. Here's the scoop on the event. ** Bernard Welt, It's official? Supreme! I'll be here with an unusually large number of my usual bells on! No, I don't get to go to Poland. If I get to travel with the theater pieces a couple of times a year, I'm lucky. Obviously, I'm really glad to hear the Colby Keller-topped class went as well as my fantasies portended. It's melancholy how those old, ambitious porns needed the coaxing movie theater context. The last time I watched Jason Sato's early Sirkian porns, I thought they held up pretty well though. That subway-based Peter De Rome film is the only one of his I can remember distinctly. Fantastic about your essay's inclusion in that tome. When is it due out? And a celebratory Day for here of any sort would only up my celebration on your and your readers' behalf. Cool about the Ian MacKaye encounter. He was just quoted on Pitchfork yesterday kind of vaguely hinting that Fugazi might not be dead. Wow, lots of good news from you yesterday. Oh, I would add Bertolucci's 'Luna' to your Mothers Day film fest if you can score it somehow. ** David Ehrenstein, Hey. Oh, that's right. I'd forgotten that Mark Hamill knew Danny's brother. You keep referring to Bill Jones as a d.l. Does that mean he reads the blog? If so, hi, Bill. In fact, ... Bill Jones, if you're reading this, old pal, I've been trying to put together a post/Day together about your work for this blog for ages, and the internet is not forking up the kind of goods that would allow me to focus on your work with sufficient style and proper respect. Any chance you could help me out? Love, me ** Wolf, My characters only speak like Ryan Trecartin in their wildest dreams. Guy's genius is irrepeatable. You want a system? Are you sure? How about we trade, yours for mine. I'm scared of Cleverbot. Not that scared is bad. Everyone, if you don't know Cleverbot, Wolf can link you up. Presto. ** MANCY, Hey. Yeah, he's the man, no? ** Pilgarlic, Really glad to hear you're doing well. I sure wish I was in a position to wander into your garage sale, as dangerous as that would be for my storage space. Your first concert story sounds great. I mean, the story is already great but I hope to get to read the unexpurgated version at some point. Uriah Heep, I saw them too. The UK cover of their first album with the fold out photo of a fake dead human head covered with cobwebs is what lured me in. I remember the name Cactus, but, hm, I don't know if I ever even heard them much less ever saw them live. I'm trying to remember the first concert I ever went to and paid for with my own money. First concert paid for by my parents was The Monkees. I think maybe the first personally paid for show I saw was The Mothers of Invention? ** Alan, Hey. Have a good upstate trip. If the galley isn't there when you get back, say so, and I'll give HP a hard nudge. Yeah, understood about the irrelevance. I agree except that I tend to work with the specific emotional attachment to the real person pretty heavily, and that kind of leaves this realness in the attachment or something. ** Jon Reiss, Hey. The Chaos Magick stuff is in there and operating throughout the novel, but I don't draw all that much attention to it, so not catching it makes sense. Yeah, the novel is a sigil, or it was my attempt to deploy the rules of sigil making in my novel's structural rules or whatever, and it encodes a wish. Yeah, your piece was awesome. I'm following up on a bunch of stuff in it. I don't know if I'll be in NYC before the novel comes out in November. No plans, but something could come up. A phone interview maybe? I don't know. Whatever's best for you. It's such a drag that agents are so all about plot when they consider author clients, but I hope yours persuades her obviously. I think if I had ever been asked to describe the plot of any of my novels to a prospective agent, I'd still be a freefloating self-publisher. I just totally lucked into an agent with a taste for the 'transgressive' early on and have been very lucky that he's a very loyal guy. Let me know what happens with her. ** Hyrule Dungeon, The contest has gotten serious. Okay, you bet, and ... Everyone, yesterday I linked you up to Hyrule Dungeon's art/entry in a contest to win a ticket to a sold out Odd Future gig. Well, now you can help him win, and it's so easy. All you have to do is go here and then locate and open the 'head on the hook' entry and 'Like' it to help HD win. So simple, so quick, so not a waste of a precious minute or less. So, please help out a d.l. and click that link, etc., okay? Thanks! ** Bollo, Since you're being so forthright, I will admit that I too have used a business card to floss or more than one occasion. In fact, since I think I've flossed in the officially recognized fashion maybe twice in my life, you might even say I'm a business card flossing kind of guy. What's cheese youm? I don't know and like that word youm. Another email from me coming today. Dude, if you could come down for that, fantastic! ** Michael Cameron, Welcome, Michael Cameron, and thank you very much for propping Math and the big T. ** Oscar B, Oh, no big about yesterday. I'll buzz you as soon as I'm done here. And thank you a lot for the email. We'll talk, but, yeah, thanks so much, pal! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hey, Ben, and thanks! ** Ken Baumann, Hi, Ken! Ryan is a super great guy, and I betcha he would not dismiss your suggestion and offer in any way, shape, or form. And he lives in LA now! And not so very far from where I live in LA! Shall I try to hook us all up for a three-way coffee on my next visit? You found 'TMS' in mailbox? Trippy, and, you know, very cool, and, uh, gulp, and, yeah, gosh, I hope you like it. ** Schoolboyerrors, Hey. Oh, here's a link to a terrific piece on Ryan Trecartin by Wayne Koestenbaum that was originally in Artforum if that helps. I wrote a shortish thing on RT, also for Artforum, and it's in my 'Smothered in Hugs' book. Angry + Albers ... wow, interesting. I'll go look for that Aussie review. I've been meaning to google my way into seeing what online evidence there might be of that show. Oh, you know, on the 'Lux et Nox' thing. There actually isn't an intro by me in the book. Originally, they were going to reprint my Artforum piece on Henson as an intro at Henson's suggestion, but then the publisher nixed the idea at the last minute after the press release went out saying I had written an introduction. So, the only piece I've written on Henson's work is the one that, again, is in 'Smothered in Hugs'. ** Steevee, Well, excellent idea for a think piece obviously, and I hope the site gobbles it up. Did they? No, I haven't heard the new Krallice album. Intend to. Another vote for the new Fleet Foxes. Okay, I think you just put me over the top. I'll get it. Great about the tracks. I really appreciate you doing that, and for the tracks you've sent so far. Yeah, thanks a lot, Steve. ** Chris Cochrane, Oh, yeah, I guess I saw the first mistaken FB thing. Well, then, I sure wish I could be there tomorrow. Cool and odd that it's an outdoors thing, not to mention where it is exactly. I've strolled by there with my head turned sharply to the right (or left depending on the direction in which I was walking) so many times. Wow, you liked a bit of Mascis. Try 'Bug'. Man, I'm telling you, it's a goodie. ** Misanthrope, Hey, G. Missed you yesterday. Oh, your thing will be appearing on this thing next Thursday. Got it? Thanks a bunch, bud. Well, so much for the big head equals success theory. Too big is still big, technically. Sorry to hear about your grandmother, man, and, yeah, I get the mixed blessings part. Still, hugs and fingers crossed for the best whatever your definition of that term may be under these circumstances. Take care, buddy boy. ** Heliotrope, You saw Sid! Good old Sid! If you see him again by some chance, tell him I say hi back in spades. Good guy, that Sid. Oh, right, yes, wow, we did go to faith healing thing by the then-super famous TV evangelist Ernest Angely. Remember him at all? A bunch of us went, and two of us went up and got healed. Not really, and not Sid or me, obviously. Love you too. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hi, man. That grandma is so ripe for a reality show or a documentary film or an episode of a Discovery Channel series about the correlation between wrinkled skin and crabbiness or something. My dad used to do that success thing to me. He wanted to be a writer when he was young, and he used to tear into me for hours at a time about how much more successful he would have been as a writer than I was had he chosen to be a writer. But then he mellowed out as he got old for the most part, unlike that grandma. Two of my friend visitors are coming at around the same time, and the other one is coming a week later. I met Michael Pitt once with Gus Van Sant, and he was really surly and unfriendly. I'm always saying stuff like this, I know, but I always mean it: that paragraph starting with the brush and ending with the 'hair done' and sadness was really beautiful. 'Bad Behavior' is a good one, really good one. I read the 'Secretary' story first, so I had kind of the opposite reaction, i.e. that the movie was too drawn out, Funny. I watched the new Lady Gaga video yesterday. Blah. It just reinforces my opinion that she has already shot her wad, and that the fun aspect of her is on a semi-steep incline now. Thanks a lot for 'Tree of Life' clip link. As I've said, I'm counting the milli-seconds until that hits the theaters. My day: Pretty uneventful, I'm afraid. The museum trip plans got rescheduled for today, so I mostly just picked up the slack by working on stuff. Some fiction, some blog, some thing for Tosh, started making notes for a blurb I was asked to write for an upcoming book. I went out and bought some food. I saw a poster for the annual Night of the Museums, which is a night when all the museums in Paris are free and open late and put on special events, and it's always a blast, and the poster said it's happening on the 14th, meaning next weekend, so I got kind of excited in a way. Also, right now Paris is having another annual event called something like Paris tout a les lettres, which is a big citywide literary festival, and sometimes they're pretty cool, but I checked the schedule for this year and the only English language writers that are doing things in it are Jim Harrison and Jay McInerney, neither of whom I have any interest in seeing, so that was disappointing in a way. I realized that no one I know is game to see 'Thor' with me, and that I'm almost for sure not going to see it, which is probably for the best. I watched a documentary about how evil Vladimir Putin is on French TV with Yury, and he said it was entirely accurate. I think that's all the day held for me. Your turn. ** Bill, You and 'too long' should get gay married and adopt a very small child, ha ha. Still, I'll take your masterful word for it about the Villaronga and steel myself should it ever enter my world. ** Math, Yesterday was great, duh, and thank you again and again. May 2011 is probably out at this point, grr, but I think June is pretty damned in. Sucks that I'll miss you. Safe voyage, and report back from godland while you're there and if you're able. ** With that, please banish me from your memory banks and fill in the part that might have contained me with Patrick deWitt and his marvelous book. Thank you. See you tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment