“Beautiful and haunting . . . one of literature’s most unlikely picaresques, a road novel in which the rogue heroes can’t seem to leave home.”—The Boston GlobeSHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Kansas City Star • BooklistHomer and Langley Collyer are brothers—the … • Booklist
Homer and Langley Collyer are brothers—the 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 Langley’s proposed dateless newspaper whose reportage will be as prophecy. Yet the epic events of the century play out in the lives of the two brothers—wars, political movements, technological advances—and 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.
Praise for Homer & Langley
“Masterly.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Doctorow paints on a sweeping historical canvas, imagining the Collyer brothers as witness to the aspirations and transgressions of 20th century America; yet this book’s most powerfully moving moments are the quiet ones, when the brothers relish a breath of cool morning air, and each other’s tragically exclusive company.”— O: The Oprah Magazine
“A stately, beautiful performance with great resonance . . . What makes this novel so striking is that it joins both blindness and insight, the sensual world and the world of the mind, to tell a story about the unfolding of modern American life that we have never heard in exactly this (austere and lovely) way before.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Wondrous . . . inspired . . . darkly visionary and surprisingly funny.” —The New York Review of Books
“Cunningly panoramic . . . Doctorow has packed this tale with episodes of existential wonder that cpature the brothers in all their fascinating wackiness.”—Elle
more
stodgy, plodding; I did not care for the characters nor the plot. It is a peek into a world I never want to occupy.
A very good read and very memorable.
Story was great. Writer is too wordy.
This story was so interesting. Original and unpredictable really are good words for it — A well written page turner. Very thoughtful.
Delightful book about some quirky characters!
Good book
Strangely engrossing. I wasn’t overly impressed with the story, but found myself going back to it, time and again. It was an interesting anthology of the times but the characters were sometimes heartbreaking, unbelievable, interesting and tragic. This was a difficult book to review but I finished it so that must say something!
Of course, wonderful writing!
You must read all of his work
Take a pair of formerly wealth aristocrat, salt the with a strange combination of common sense, weirdness and humane feelings. Pit them against a depressingly straight world, and you have a charming story.
So?
Fascinating, especially since it is based on a true story,
Interesting glance into the oddities of other and how we can unknowingly prefer isolation.
Good Read
I loved this book. Such an amazing story based on a bit of truth.
E.L.Doctorow was truly a national treasure. This, his penultimate book, shows that his perceptive and inventive powers were always with him. It is a surprising and sympathetic representation of the two brothers whom the rest of us dismissed as a kind of freak show. Despite some major gaps in the timeline of the brothers’ lives, it still gives an …
It was different than what I usually read. It kept me reading even tho I’m not sure why. It was a strange story that covered several decades.
Not entirely accurate (Homer was not a pianist) but it gave an understanding of these complex people.
Good read