Homer & Langley (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780812975635)

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, THE KANSAS CITY STAR, AND 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.

Author: E. L. Doctorow
ISBN-10: 0812975634
ISBN-13: 9780812975635
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Language: English
Published: 09/07/2010
Pages: 224
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.42lbs
Size: 7.92h x 6.60w x 0.59d

Review Citation(s):
London Review of Books 02/11/2010 pg. 22
New York Times Book Review 10/03/2010 pg. 32