âBeautiful and haunting . . . one of literatureâs most unlikely picaresques, a road novel in which the rogue heroes canât seem to leave home.ââThe Boston Globe
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE âĸ NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY San Francisco Chronicle âĸ Chicago Tribune âĸ St. Louis Post-Dispatch âĸ The Kansas City Star âĸ Booklist
Homer and Langley Collyer are brothersâthe 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 Langleyâs proposed dateless newspaper whose reportage will be as prophecy. Yet the epic events of the century play out in the lives of the two brothersâwars, political movements, technological advancesâand 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
âMasterly.ââThe New York Times Book ReviewÂ
âDoctorow paints on a sweeping historical canvas, imagining the Collyer brothers as witness to the aspirations and transgressions of 20th century America; yet this bookâs most powerfully moving moments are the quiet ones, when the brothers relish a breath of cool morning air, and each otherâs tragically exclusive company.ââ O: The Oprah Magazine
âA 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.ââSan Francisco ChronicleÂ
âWondrous . . . inspired . . . darkly visionary and surprisingly funny.â âThe New York Review of Books
âCunningly panoramic . . . Doctorow has packed this tale with episodes of existential wonder that cpature the brothers in all their fascinating wackiness.ââElle