A review by jcbmathcat
Homer & Langley by E.L. Doctorow

4.0

This fictional account of the Collyer brothers pulled me in from the first sentence. These famous hoarders died in their 5th Avenue mansion. Doctorow took great artistic license with the facts, changing the birth order of the brothers and also greatly extending the length of their lives. In this fictionalized account, Homer is the younger brother who goes blind in his late teens. Langley, the older brother, is traumatized by his stint in WWI and returns home, a changed man. The brothers live in the family home; parents died while Langley was off at war (this did not happen in real life).

As Doctorow put it, these are "two brothers who opted out of civilization and pulled the world in after them."

According to Wikipedia, workers removed about 130 tons of debris from the mansion after the brothers died.