If you liked All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, read this award-winning Canadian novel
CBC Radio | Posted: January 7, 2019 4:42 PM | Last Updated: August 5, 2019
This interview originally aired on Jan. 7, 2019.
Cormac McCarthy's 1993 book All the Pretty Horses was both a critical and commercial success, winning the National Book Award for fiction, becoming a national bestseller and being adapted for film. The Next Chapter listener Heather Touet believes the Canadian counterpart to the novel is Patrick deWitt's The Sisters Brothers, which is also an award-winning, bestselling novel that has been adapted for film.
"I confess I don't really like western novels or western movies or western anything. But I happened to read Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses a few years ago and I loved it. It's a bit depressing, as most of his books are, but it spoke to me.
"So when I heard about Patrick deWitt's The Sisters Brothers, I thought I should give a Canadian author's western a chance. Overall, I really loved it. Again, it was a non-traditional narrative. It was definitely more funny than All the Pretty Horses, but it involved two rogues travelling through the road in western times, getting into adventures."
Heather Touet's comments have been edited for length and clarity.