Patrick deWitt published his first novel, Ablutions, in 2009, and his work has gained a reputation for both dark humor and insight. With his second novel, The Sisters Brothers, deWitt began experimenting with genre, and his next two books, Undermajordomo Minor in 2015, and French Exit in 2018, followed suit. With each of these novels, deWitt focuses on a particular genre and its conventions, using its typical characteristics as a way of both exploring and subverting the genre itself.

The Sisters Brothers is, in many ways, a typical Western novel. It uses many of the genre’s conventions, taking place in the typically Western setting of the American West, California and Oregon, in 1851. The defining characteristic of Westerns is the wide-open setting of the American West, and the often desolate and barren nature of the landscape. Against this backdrop, Western literature often features violence and criminality, which deWitt exemplifies in the older of the Sisters brothers, Charlie, who is, typically for the genre, a remorseless criminal with an uncontrollable alcohol addiction. However, in deWitt’s hands, the novel also becomes a way of questioning many of those conventions and stereotypes, resulting in a thoughtful exploration of masculinity.