Random House, 2009
Doctorow explores the story of the reclusive Collyer brothers, real people who became legendary when they were found dead in their Fifth Avenue home in the 1940s. As Doctorow tells the story, in the voice of Homer, things started going downhill with the advent of World War I, despite the fact that Homer had already begun losing his sight. Langley goes off to war, and one right after the other, their parents die of the Spanish Influenza, leaving Homer alone in the family mansion with a full host of servants to care for him.
Langley is reported missing, but ultimately turns up having painfully survived exposure to mustard gas. It is when he returns home that the brothers’ lives begin to disintegrate. While Langley lovingly cares for Homer, he becomes a pack rat, hauling in piles of newspapers every day; pianos for Homer, who is an excellent musician; a Model T that he assembles in the dining room; multiple typewriters, including a Braille to Roman alphabet typewriter for Homer; all kinds of army surplus including clothing which comes in handy over the years, but also helmets and gas masks.
Meanwhile, Homer is beginning to lose his hearing, which he had depended upon, along with his memory to help him navigate the house, — thus making Langley’s acquisitions an ever greater imposition on his independence. Despite the times that Homer despaired of his disability, he never asked Langley to change his ways to make his life easier. In fact, he subjected himself to all sorts of oddball theories of Langley’s to help improve his sight: taking strange supplements with his meals, indulging in art and music and light therapy that Langley concocted, all to no avail.
Due to Langley’s idiosyncrasies, the brothers become embattled with the utility companies, their bank, the neighbors, the police, the fire commissioner, the public health department, and the press. They leave their house less and less often, although there is a period in the 1970s (Doctorow extends the life-span of the brothers) when they open their home to young hippies who need a place to crash.
As time goes by, Langley becomes more eccentric and paranoid, and although Langley cares for Homer physically, it is Homer who is the psychological stalwart of the two of them. Finally, the house becomes less and less navigable, until finally the inevitable happens.
Homer and Langley is a fascinating read, delving as it does, into the imagined minds of two eccentric characters who become trapped by their own psychological impairments.
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