The title reads “The Sad Tale of Brothers Grossbart” but the book reveals itself to be half comedy, half tragedy. You can discern as much by reading the headline on the back: “We ain’t thieves and we ain’t killers, we’s just good men been done wrong.”
And so goes the malevolent stupidity of the grave robbing pair. See: grave robbing isn’t wrong if it’s your family trade. Right? The brothers would agree. They would also add that they only throttled your ma because she was making too much noise (and she started it first). Although the tongue is placed firmly in cheek, it should be noted that this book is probably not for everyone. It even has the courtesy to provide a gatekeeper in the form of an atrocity, five pages in, where the brothers carelessly slaughter the wife and children of a turnip farmer. “Abandon all Hope Ye Who Enter Here.” Setting the tone for the rest of the book, the violence in this scene is frank and anatomically descriptive.
The more sensitive readers may be right to put the book down. The rest of us will later begin to see slapstick in the many hyper-photographically detailed bodily insults recorded here. The brothers make enemies as naturally as we breathe air, and a large subplot of the book involves the vengeful people, witches, and supernatural beings on the trail of the Grossbarts. The Grossbarts themselves are focused on getting to Egypt, because they’ve heard many a tale of the fantastical graves there. Being grave robbers and all, they take a professional interest.
Plot-wise, the book reads very much like the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor as chronicled in the Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night. That is to say that the protagonists become tangled in machinations that are vastly greater than they are. The brothers manage to stumble through by the light of their own convictions, no matter how misplaced those convictions may be. In the Brothers Grossbart, this provides endless opportunities for dire humor. And at times these awful, stinking, disgusting, ugly, and appallingly stupid and violent men approach likability. I was also reminded of Grimm’s Fairy Tales
I would be wrong to talk about this book without mentioning the masterful grasp that Bullington has on the English language. The language is used like a fine tool to disgust, appall, frighten, or even describe beauty. Upon entering Venice: “True to its visage, the sky let them advance only a short distance before a deluge crashed down on them.” The brothers and unfortunate henchmen are approached by three long dead, rotting men who are animated by demons: “The stench overpowered them, even the Grossbarts gagging on the suddenly wet air.”
Creepy Factor: 4 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 2 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 2 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 5 out of 5
Final result: It is not wrong to want to murder the Brothers Grossbart. What a great book.
The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington – 2009 – Orbit
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