The western as a literary genre declined in popularity with the rise of film and televised formats in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Over the years numerous authors have attempted to follow in the footsteps of Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour, including Elmore Leonard, Larry McMurty and Leigh Brackett. Now, however, with his beguiling The Sisters Brothers, Patrick DeWitt has resuscitated the ailing form by deviating from the usual tropes and in the process weaving a compelling and often narrative around complex, tortured characters.

“I find when personalities in films or novels are very black-and-white I tend to lose interest,” DeWitt muses, ensconced in a corner of Brooks Hotel in Dublin. “It seems like real life is more complicated than that. I have never known any purely bad or purely good people and it just seemed like more of a challenge to try to humanise complicated people as opposed to just painting someone as heroic. When things become cut and dried in my own work I tend to lose interest.”
Losing interest is hardly an issue for DeWitt right now. The Booker-nominated Sisters Brothers has been the recipient of a slew of literary awards and has catapulted the young Canadian from relative anonymity to global notoriety. His previous outing Ablutions had garnered positive nods in literary circles and further acclaim followed when celebrated director Azazel Jacobs brought his short story Terri to international screens with John C. Reilly in the title role. However, the Goldrush-era tale of two hired assassins went further, capturing the imagination of the wider reading public. Inevitably it will be turned into a movie, and Reilly is in discussions to play the lead role.
Alongside its impressively dark humour, perhaps the tome’s greatest strength is its ability to create sympathy between the reader and the rather less than benign characters. By painting the brothers as somewhat fragile and damaged, he eschews the stereotype of the cold hearted killer. This complexity and depth provides an absorbing journey for both reader and, as he explains, writer.
“It takes a lot of energy to work on a long project and that needs to regenerate every day,” says DeWitt. “So when plot and characters are in flux it’s more absorbing. Eli, for example, is a little bit of everything, much more fascinating to spend time with. It’s the same socialising, people who are really kind and always have a kind word are fine to spend time with – but it’s not nearly as interesting as someone who has ups and downs. It’s more interesting for me to go through a range of emotions and deeds.”
Currently on a literary residency in Paris with his wife and young son in tow, DeWitt has found himself between two projects. He has recently abandoned a contemporary tale of a corrupt investment banker he’d been working on, to concentrate on a dark fable about a young man who moves to a remote monastery.
“The guideline for me generally is that if something is dragging and I’m not having a good time I tend to become overly-critical,” he says. “I was struggling with the investment advisor story so for the time being I have stepped away and I’m working on the fable. It is a nasty story but it is a lot of fun and has my full attention right now. In terms of what is going to be the next novel I’m not really sure – but one of the two will win out.”
DeWitt struggled with the discipline of writing a screenplay, though he credits the innate restrictions of the form with the success of Terri.
“They are very different,” he says. “Fiction is much more expansive and you can really do anything you want to – whereas with screenwriting there are some really rigid rules and guidelines that you have to go by. Terri was my first screenplay but as I got into it I found the rules almost made it like a puzzle and it was actually kind of fascinating. It was also maddening at times because, with a book, you don’t really need to have a conclusion – it can just sort of end! I remember the end of Terri was really difficult and unpleasant: I was pulling my hair out. But I am happy with the end result, so I owe it to the rules for guiding me towards what now is the film.”
DeWitt has been compared to Charles Bukowski, particularly for Ablutions. The author himself has resisted these associations, describing the latter’s writing as inherently masculine and his own as sexless.
“I don’t feel any aesthetic kinship with most of the authors that people think I do,” he counters. “I think being compared to other writers is just something that people do in order to get a dialogue started or just to generally reference what you’re dealing with. I don’t think it’s unfair or overtly incorrect to compare Ablutions to Charles Bukowski because it is a story about alcoholism and Hollywood, so there is going to be some overlap, but he was someone that was never in my mind in writing that book.
“In terms of gender,” he adds, “generally speaking I am not a macho guy and my sympathies don’t really lie with any one group. That’s what I mean when I say sexless. I prefer the company of women to men socially, and I always have: I’ve never been a guy’s guy. I also think I bristled against the Bukowski comparison as I don’t want to be one of those authors that have a really intense male readership and women won’t want to read my work. The idea of women not reading my books is horrific to me so I try to avoid that. I would hope that anyone can read my work and not feel alienated.”
I suspect the million-plus readers who bought the book would heartily concur.