Hype Alert: ‘Homer & Langley’

By Mad Dog
Published: Aug 23, 2009

E.L. Doctorow’s Homer & Langley has been panned by the New York Times, but most book columns have been beating drums for it as one of the prizes of the Fall. Sadly, no. Doctorow is a god to me — once a great book editor, then a serious novelist, always on the smart side of every issue — but this chronicle of the Collyer brothers (the nutcases who filled their Manhattan townhouse with newspapers and junk) is thin and forced. Better move: read Ragtime.