Patrick deWitt

Charlie y Eli Sisters viven en Oregon City y trabajan para el Comodoro, un magnate y quizá aspirante a político que mueve muchos hilos en las sombras y tiene múltiples y variados negocios. Los hermanos, todo hay que decirlo, son sus matones y a veces sus verdugos. Y ahora van rumbo a Sacramento, en California, a cumplir un nuevo trabajo para su jefe, acabar con Hermann Kermit Warm, un buscador de oro. Porque la novela transcurre en 1851, en plena fiebre del oro. No se sabe muy bien en que rio aurifero se encuentra Warm, y el comodoro ha enviado por delante a Morris, el dandy, que tambien trabaja para el y tiene que averiguar su paradero y seguirlo, para entregarselo a los Sisters. Una novela muy seductora, negra y divertida. Los criticos han comparado a su autor con Cormac McCarthy, pero este es mas bien hijo de Faulkner, mientras que DeWitt es sobrino de Mark Twain y primo hermano de los hermanos Coen, si de parentescos literarios se trata. DeWitt ha escrito una novela del lejano Oeste que subvierte el genero, emocionante, divertidisima e inesperadamente conmovedora (Publishers Weekly).

A nameless barman tends a decaying bar in Hollywood and takes notes for a book about his clientele. Initially, he is morbidly amused by watching the regulars roll in and fall into their nightly oblivion, pitying them and their loneliness. In hopes of uncovering their secrets and motives, he establishes tentative friendships with them.

Lucien (Lucy) Minor is the resident odd duck in the bucolic hamlet of Bury. Friendless and loveless, young and aimless, he is a compulsive liar and a melancholy weakling. When Lucy accepts employment assisting the majordomo of the remote, forbidding castle of the Baron Von Aux he meets thieves, madmen, aristocrats, and a puppy. He also meets Klara, a delicate beauty who is, unfortunately, already involved with an exceptionally handsome partisan soldier. Thus begins a tale of polite theft, bitter heartbreak, domestic mystery and cold-blooded murder in which every aspect of human behaviour is laid bare for our hero to observe. Lucy must stay safe, and protect his puppy, because someone or something is roaming the corridors of the castle late at night.Undermajordomo Minor is a triumphant ink-black comedy of manners by the Man Booker shortlisted author of The Sisters Brothers. It is an adventure story, and a mystery, and a searing portrayal of rural Alpine bad behaviour with a brandy tart, but above all it is a love story. And Lucy must be careful, for love is a violent thing.

Lucien (Lucy) Minor is the resident odd duck in the bucolic hamlet of Bury. Friendless and loveless, young and aimless, he is a compulsive liar and a melancholy weakling. When Lucy accepts employment assisting the majordomo of the remote, forbidding castle of the Baron Von Aux he meets thieves, madmen, aristocrats, and a puppy. He also meets Klara, a delicate beauty who is, unfortunately, already involved with an exceptionally handsome partisan soldier. Thus begins a tale of polite theft, bitter heartbreak, domestic mystery and cold-blooded murder in which every aspect of human behaviour is laid bare for our hero to observe. Lucy must stay safe, and protect his puppy, because someone or something is roaming the corridors of the castle late at night. Undermajordomo Minor is a triumphant ink-black comedy of manners by the Man Booker-shortlisted author of The Sisters Brothers. It is an adventure story, and a mystery, and a searing portrayal of rural Alpine bad behaviour with a brandy tart, but above all it is a love story. And Lucy must be careful, for love is a violent thing.

Laissant derriere eux New York, de lourds effluves de scandale et le spectre de la ruine financiere, Frances Price (veuve foutraque aussi belle quacerbe) et son fils unique Malcolm (loser a tous les etages) larguent les amarres en compagnie de Small Frank, le chat (reincarnation maussade du defunt mari). Direction Paris, ou une derniere bataille doit etre livree, qui pourrait bien etre synonyme dautodestruction Une viree mere/fils desopilante, que seul un Patrick deWitt pouvait concevoir.

Laissant derriere eux New York, de lourds effluves de scandale et le spectre de la ruine financiere, Frances Price (veuve foutraque aussi belle quacerbe) et son fils unique Malcolm (loser a tous les etages) larguent les amarres en compagnie de Small Frank, le chat (reincarnation maussade du defunt mari). Direction Paris, ou une derniere bataille doit etre livree, qui pourrait bien etre synonyme dautodestruction Une viree mere/fils desopilante, que seul un Patrick deWitt pouvait concevoir.

Descente aux enfers en forme de rencontre avec les divers ressortissants dune cour des miracles ayant élu pour siège un bar de Los Angeles, Ablutions constitue une variation exceptionnelle, servie p

Descente aux enfers en forme de rencontre avec les divers ressortissants dune cour des miracles ayant élu pour siège un bar de Los Angeles, Ablutions constitue une variation exceptionnelle, servie p

Oregon, 1851. Eli and Charlie Sisters, notorious professional killers, are on their way to California to kill a man named Hermann Kermit Warm. On the way, the brothers have a series of unsettling and violent experiences in the Darwinian landscape of Gold Rush America. Charlie makes money and kills anyone who stands in his way; Eli doubts his vocation and falls in love. And they bicker a lot. Then they get to California, and discover that Warm is an inventor who has come up with a magical formula, which could make all of them very rich. What happens next is utterly gripping, strange and sad. Told in deWitt's darkly comic and arresting style, The Sisters Brothers is the kind of Western the Coen Brothers might write - stark, unsettling and with a keen eye for the perversity of human motivation. Like his debut novel ABLUTIONS, THE SISTERS BROTHERS is a novel about the things you tell yourself in order to be able to continue to live the life you find yourself in, and what happens when those stories no longer work. It is an inventive and strange and beautifully controlled piece of fiction, which shows an exciting expansion of Dewitt's range

Oregon, 1851. Eli and Charlie Sisters, notorious professional killers, are on their way to California to kill a man named Hermann Kermit Warm. On the way, the brothers have a series of unsettling and violent experiences in the Darwinian landscape of Gold Rush America. Charlie makes money and kills anyone who stands in his way; Eli doubts his vocation and falls in love. And they bicker a lot. Then they get to California, and discover that Warm is an inventor who has come up with a magical formula, which could make all of them very rich. What happens next is utterly gripping, strange and sad. Told in deWitt's darkly comic and arresting style, THE WARM JOB is the kind of Western the Coen Brothers might write - stark, unsettling and with a keen eye for the perversity of human motivation. Like his debut novel ABLUTIONS, THE WARM JOB is a novel about the things you tell yourself in order to be able to continue to live the life you find yourself in, and what happens when those stories no longer work. It is an inventive and strange and beautifully controlled piece of fiction, which shows an exciting expansion of Dewitt's range

Frances Price - tart widow, possessive mother and Upper East Side force of nature - is in dire straits, beset by scandal. Her adult son Malcolm is no help, mired in a permanent state of arrested development. And then there's their cat, Small Frank, who Frances believes houses the spirit of her late husband, an infamously immoral lawyer whose gruesome tabloid death rendered them social outcasts. To put their troubles behind them, the trio cut their losses and head for the exit. Their beloved Paris becomes the backdrop for a giddy drive to self-destruction, helped along by a cast of singularly curious characters: a bashful private investigator, an aimless psychic and Mme. Reynard, friendly American expat and aggressive houseguest. Brimming with pathos, warmth and wit, French Exit is a one-of-a-kind tragedy of manners, a riotous send-up of high society and a moving story of mothers and sons.

Patrick deWitt, auteur à succès des *Frères Sisters*, nous revient avec lhistoire de Bob Comet, un bibliothécaire à la retraire qui a vécu sa vie à travers et pour la littérature sans se douter que s

Patrick deWitt, auteur à succès des *Frères Sisters*, nous revient avec lhistoire de Bob Comet, un bibliothécaire à la retraire qui a vécu sa vie à travers et pour la littérature sans se douter que s

Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. Across 1000 miles of Oregon desert his assassins, the notorious Eli and Charlies Sisters, ride - fighting, shooting, and drinking their way to Sacramento. But their prey isn''t an easy mark, the road is long and bloody, and somewhere along the path Eli begins to question what he does for a living - and whom he does it for.The Sisters Brothers pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable ribald tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of 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.

Una hilarante y emocionante novela de iniciación sobre un joven mayordomo que descubre los misterios de la vida y las heridas del amor. Lucy Minor, un joven que está dejando atrás la adolescencia y adentrandose en el mundo adulto, se marcha del pueblo entre montañas del que no ha salido jamas. Lo hace despues de sufrir un desengaño amoroso y constatar que en ese lugar en el que abundan los rudos gigantones sera siempre un marginado. Lleva en el bolsillo una carta con una oferta de trabajo: un puesto de ayudante de mayordomo en el castillo Von Aux.El ingenuo Lucy se topara con personajes variopintos: un mayordomo dado a filosofar y a la melancolia; una cocinera inepta que no acepta criticas; un aristocrata que cada dia envia una desesperada carta de amor sin obtener nunca respuesta; unos peculiares guerrilleros que combaten en las montañas sin saber muy bien por que; dos ladrones profesionales que ejercen su oficio en los trenes, y Klara, la hija de uno de ellos... Rodeado por esta galeria de excentricos, Lucy indagara en la misteriosa desaparicion de su antecesor, descubrira en el castillo a un ser humano salvaje que come roedores, sera testigo de una extraña orgia en la que una tarta se convierte en instrumento sadomasoquista, escuchara algunas historias sobre perfidos seductores y maestros del engaño y, sobre todo, ira descubriendo las pasiones y pesares del mundo adulto y los vaivenes del amor, que no es para pusilanimes.DeWitt toma como punto de partida la novela centroeuropea, los antiheroes de Robert Walser y el universo kafkiano, y los mezcla con un protagonista que parece salido de un slapstick con unas gotas de cine expresionista. El resultado es un Bildungsroman posmoderno, que combina un humor descacharrante con una profunda mirada sobre las incertezas y perplejidades de un joven ante las paradojas de la vida.

Una hilarante y emocionante novela de iniciación sobre un joven mayordomo que descubre los misterios de la vida y las heridas del amor.Lucy Minor, un joven que está dejando atrás la adolescencia y adentrandose en el mundo adulto, se marcha del pueblo entre montañas del que no ha salido jamas. Lo hace despues de sufrir un desengaño amoroso y constatar que en ese lugar en el que abundan los rudos gigantones sera siempre un marginado. Lleva en el bolsillo una carta con una oferta de trabajo: un puesto de ayudante de mayordomo en el castillo Von Aux.El ingenuo Lucy se topara con personajes variopintos: un mayordomo dado a filosofar y a la melancolia; una cocinera inepta que no acepta criticas; un aristocrata que cada dia envia una desesperada carta de amor sin obtener nunca respuesta; unos peculiares guerrilleros que combaten en las montañas sin saber muy bien por que; dos ladrones profesionales que ejercen su oficio en los trenes, y Klara, la hija de uno de ellos... Rodeado por esta galeria de excentricos, Lucy indagara en la misteriosa desaparicion de su antecesor, descubrira en el castillo a un ser humano salvaje que come roedores, sera testigo de una extraña orgia en la que una tarta se convierte en instrumento sadomasoquista, escuchara algunas historias sobre perfidos seductores y maestros del engaño y, sobre todo, ira descubriendo las pasiones y pesares del mundo adulto y los vaivenes del amor, que no es para pusilanimes.DeWitt toma como punto de partida la novela centroeuropea, los antiheroes de Robert Walser y el universo kafkiano, y los mezcla con un protagonista que parece salido de un slapstick con unas gotas de cine expresionista. El resultado es un Bildungsroman posmoderno, que combina un humor descacharrante con una profunda mirada sobre las incertezas y perplejidades de un joven ante las paradojas de la vida.

Frances Price - tart widow, possessive mother and Upper East Side force of nature - is in dire straits, beset by scandal. Her adult son Malcolm is no help, mired in a permanent state of arrested development. And then there''s their cat, Small Frank, who Frances believes houses the spirit of her late husband, an infamously immoral lawyer whose gruesome tabloid death rendered them social outcasts.To put their troubles behind them, the trio cut their losses and head for the exit. Their beloved Paris becomes the backdrop for a giddy drive to self-destruction, helped along by a cast of singularly curious characters: a bashful private investigator, an aimless psychic and Mme. Reynard, friendly American expat and aggressive houseguest.Brimming with pathos, warmth and wit, French Exit is a one-of-a-kind tragedy of manners, a riotous send-up of high society and a moving story of mothers and sons.

In a famous but declining Hollywood bar works A Barman. Morbidly amused by the decadent decay of his surroundings, he watches the patrons fall into their nightly oblivion, making notes for his novel. In the hope of uncovering their secrets and motives, he establishes tentative friendships with the cast of variously pathological regulars. But as his tenure at the bar continues, he begins to serve himself more often than his customers, and the moments he lives outside the bar become more and more painful: he loses his wife, his way, himself. Trapped by his habits and his loneliness, he realizes he will not survive if he doesnt break free. And so he hatches a terrible, necessary plan of escape and his only chance for redemption. Step into Ablutions and step behind the bar, below rock bottom, and beyond the everyday take on storytelling for a brilliant, new twist on the classic tale of addiction and its consequences.

NATIONAL BESTSELLERFrom bestselling and award-winning author Patrick deWitt comes the story of Bob Comet, a man who has lived his life through and for literature, unaware that his own experience is a poignant and affecting narrative in itself. Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books and small comforts in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home. Hoping to fill the void hes known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.Behind Bob Comets straight-man façade is the story of an unhappy childs runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War, of true love won and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in the librarians vocation, and of the pleasures of a life lived to the side of the masses. Bobs experiences are imbued with melancholy but also a bright, sustained comedy; he has a talent for locating bizarre and outsize players to welcome onto the stage of his life.With his inimitable verve, skewed humor, and compassion for the outcast, Patrick deWitt has written a wide-ranging and ambitious document of the introverts condition. The Librarianist celebrates the extraordinary in the so-called ordinary life, and depicts beautifully the turbulence that sometimes exists beneath a surface of serenity.

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JAKE GYLLENHAAL, JOHN C. REILLY AND JOAQUIN PHOENIXA BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST AND A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Publishers Weekly Amazon Hudson Booksellers Washington Post 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 doesnt share his brothers appetite for whiskey and killing, hes never known anything else. But their prey isnt an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warms 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 neer-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.