From Ragtime and Billy Bathgate to The Book of Daniel, Worldβs Fair, and The March, the novels of E. L. Doctorow comprise one of the most substantive achievements of modern American fiction. Now, with Homer & Langley, this master novelist has once again created an unforgettable work.
Homer and Langley Collyer are brothersβthe one blind and deeply intuitive, the other damaged into madness, or perhaps greatness, by mustard gas in the Great War. They live as recluses in their once grand Fifth Avenue mansion, scavenging the city streets for things they think they can use, hoarding the daily newspapers as research for Langleyβs proposed dateless newspaper whose reportage will be as prophecy. Yet the epic events of the century play out in the lives of the two brothersβwars, political movements, technological advancesβand even though they want nothing more than to shut out the world, history seems to pass through their cluttered house in the persons of immigrants, prostitutes, society women, government agents, gangsters, jazz musicians . . . and their housebound lives are fraught with odyssean peril as they struggle to survive and create meaning for themselves.
Brilliantly conceived, gorgeously written, this mesmerizing narrative, a free imaginative rendering of the lives of New Yorkβs fabled Collyer brothers, is a family story with the resonance of myth, an astonishing masterwork unlike any that have come before from this great writer.
Media Buzz
Diane Rehm Show - NPR - September 24, 2009 CBS Sunday Morning - September 20, 2009 Charlie Rose - September 10, 2009 All Things Considered - September 1, 2009
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