The exuberant young Canadian writer Patrick deWitt hit the ground running with his debut Ablutions: Notes for a Novel, a funny and dark addition to road fiction that would sit more than companionably on the shelf next to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But it was with his second novel, The Sisters Brothers, that he found his brilliant, distinctive voice. The Sisters Brothers, which is set in Oregon and California during the mid-19th Century, is like a combination of Cormac McCarthy at his best and the Coen Brothers at theirs, with perhaps a dash or two of Sam Peckinpah and Deadwood thrown in. Eli and Charlie Sisters are hitmen who have been sent by their mysterious boss, The Commodore, to kill the slippery, affable Herman Kermit Warm for purportedly stealing from him. Instead, the brothers join up with Warm when it is revealed that Warm has developed a formula that reveals the location of gold hidden in riverbeds; what they don’t initially realize, however, is that the formula is ruinously toxic. The book is a riotous, surreal, and bloody picaresque of jaw-dropping reversals and black comedy as well as a moving evocation of conscientiousness acquired too late. It is a comic masterpiece and was shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker prize.

deWitt’s most recent novel, Undermajordomo Minor, is like an Eastern European folk tale composed of moth wings and decay and dripping castle walls; it shares affinities with the short stories of Steven Millhauser, The Princess Bride, the Gormenghast novels of Mervyn Peake, and the gorgeous prose of the great 19th century Swiss writer, Robert Walser, himself a tremendous influence on Franz Kafka. Like The Sisters Brothers, Undermajordomo Minor takes bizarre detours that are curiously apt once you’ve arrived at your destination. As Daniel Handler said in his glowing review of the book,” Undermajordomo Minor feels less like a postmodern exploration—a take if you will—and more like the genuine article, a tale that engages us and haunts us just like the best tales of yore”.

Standing Room Only, the Emmet Oneal Library’s event series for adults over 21, is delighted to present an evening with Patrick deWitt on Saturday, March 18, 2017. The tickets are $20 and will be available for purchase online at www.eolib.org and at Emmet O’Neal Library. deWitt will give a talk and sign books and there will be an audience Q & A. Books will be available for purchase at the event. 

Call Amanda Westfall at 205-445-1119 for details.