Homer & Langley by E.L. Doctorow ****

Homer and Langley are brothers. Their early years are spent in relatively normal circumstance with well-to-do parents who live in a mansion on 5th Avenue in New York. As their lives progress Homer becomes blind and Langley is the victim of a mustard gas attack during the World War 1. When he returns it is obvious that the trauma of his experience has affected him.

The novel is written entirely from the perspective of Homer as he describes their increasingly bizarre life without their parents who died of the Spanish Flu in 1918. Their historic journey as a pair of unconventional recluses becomes increasingly fascinating as Doctorow highlights major historic events in New York through the peculiar perceptions of the two brothers.

The two become increasingly eccentric throughout the novel and Doctorow’s exceptional writing style and imaginative creation of the primary characters makes it a great read.

"Too Much Happiness" by Alice Munroe ****

Alice Munro’s work is customarily fascinating. This multiple award winning, Canadian, author, which the New York Times Book Review claimed “Alice Munro has a strong claim to being the best fiction writer now working in North America, continues to produce captivating work. This book of short stories has a diversity of focus, an assortment of characters, a variety of settings, and multiplicity of messages. All of the stories fundamentally have a “human interest” consideration that ranges from a woman visiting her husband who is in prison for committing a heinous crime, the impact that a severe facial birthmark has on a man, the weird relationship between an elderly male and young abandoned teenager, a exposition on the multiple types of wood that is an integral part of the life of a furniture builder/wood cutter, and the shocking behaviour of two young teenagers towards a mentally handicapped acquaintance.

The title, Too Much Happiness, comes from the final story that is longer than the others. It is a clinical reflection on the final days of the real-life mathematician Sophia Kovalevsy in the late 1890’s. Although it is interesting because it is based on fact, it isn’t as captivating as the other works in the book.