Homer and Langley

Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow  208 pp.

Homer and Langley Collyer were real people. In 1947 the eccentric brothers were found dead in their N.Y. mansion filled with old newspapers and the other detritus of their bizarre habits. Doctorow created a fictionalized version of the story narrated by Homer, the brother who loses his eyesight as a teenager. Langley goes off to fight in WWI and is severely injured by mustard gas. He returns home changed both physically and mentally to find his brother living alone in their Fifth Avenue mansion with the servants. Their parents died during the Spanish flu epidemic. Their home becomes a haven for tea dances, Langley's cockeyed projects, musicians, gangsters, hippies, a Model T in the dining room, and others who wander through the lives of the brothers. Fights with the health department, utility companies, and banks cause an increased sense of paranoia in the brothers who end up shuttering their house and booby trapping it to stop unwanted invaders. Doctorow takes liberties with the story by having the brothers live long past 1947. Their lives in the story are marked by the succession of wars up through Vietnam. Who knows what made the real Collyer brothers live like they did? Doctorow's speculation makes for a good story.