Homer & Langley - E.L. Doctorow (audio)

Have you ever watched shows on television about the hoarders? We don't watch alot of TV, but when the hoarders find their way onto one of the channels, it is physically impossible for me to turn it off. It is fascinating and horrifying all at once, and in a sick way it makes me feel good about the few measly piles of books in my bedroom.

I am certain this is why there has been so much morbid curiosity about Homer and Langley Collyer, who gained notoriety as two eccentric hoarding brothers who lived, and ultimately died, in their 5th Avenue brownstone apartment in the first half of the 20th century. Much has been written about the 50 years worth of newspapers, the Model T Ford, the numerous pianos, typewriters, televisions, irons, chandeliers and junk that was hauled out of their home, or how it took ten days to actually locate one dead brother under the detritus. But what of their lives? E. L. Doctorow gently reveals not only the brothers' descent into madness, but lives intertwined with the unfolding of the growth of our nation.

Synopsis: The colorful story of the Collyer brothers' lives is narrated by 62-year-old Homer, who has been blind since his teens and has recently gone deaf. In a pleasant, humorous voice he tells of his incredible history through his sightless impressions: Emotionally-distant parents that were struck down by the Spanish Flu. The younger Langley who fought in WWI and came home damaged and primed for what was to become four decades of an obsessive interest in junk. Their hosting of speakeasy-like tea dances during Prohibition. Their Japanese-American housekeepers who were hauled off to an internment camp upon the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Homer's infatuation with a piano student-turned-nun who is murdered on a mission in El Salvador. Their friendship with a mobster who uses their apartment as a hideout. The beatniks that "crash their pad" and share their pot and women. It is a charming microcosm of American history.

And while history is occurring, so is the Collyer's refusal to play by the rules. The telephone is the first to go, followed by electricity and water, after their failure to pay their bills. They board up their windows to ward off gawkers. They cook their meals with propane and haul in water from a spigot in Central Park. No way you could make this stuff up.

Boiled down though, after you get past the bizarre behavior and the history lesson, you are left with the loyalty, dedication and love between the brothers. Left with only his brother's touch to save him from loneliness and starvation, Homer endearingly forgives Langley of his foibles and just loves him for being.

My thoughts: I couldn't help but be reminded of my beloved Middlesex when listening to Homer and Langley's antics...an enchanting mixture of oddity and historical events, whimsy and gravity. Except this is the real deal. The prose may not be as beautiful as what Eugenides provides, but nothing can quite compete with pictures, can it?

I thoroughly enjoyed this story from beginning to end. Instead of portraying the reclusive brothers as societal rejects doomed to die in their own filth, Doctorow depicts them as sympathetic, full of wonder and living large. Is this an accurate reflection of the men behind the boarded-up windows and dead-bolted doors? I'd like to think so. After all, Doctorow does have Homer's diary as evidence of their humanity. I like to believe that everyone has a story, and everyone is inherently good.

A word about the audio production: Our narrator for this audiobook is Arthur Morey, who has had extensive experience in the field. (He is the narrator for Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving, which I just uploaded on my iPod). Initially, he seemed just average...he sounded alot like the guy that introduces the title and plot of many of the audios (who knows, maybe he is). But I began to appreciate his gentle, grandfatherly voice and various vocal inflections, and by the end of the book, he embodied Homer.

4.5 out of 5 stars