Book Review: Ghosty Men: The Strange but True Story of the Collyer Brothers, New York's Greatest Hoarders: An Urban Historical by Franz Litz

I learned about this book in an interview on National Public Radio. The Collyer brothers were very bright, well-mannered, and gifted eccentrics who gained national attention in the 1930s for their extraordinary compulsion for accumulating and hoarding just about anything that crossed their paths. Upon their deaths in 1947, Harlem's most 'infamous' residents had 136 tons of primarily junk and refuse removed from their condemned brownstone by the City of N.Y. I enjoyed the book but pitied the Collyers. It's sad that Homer Collyer, a talented lawyer, and Langley Collyer, an engineer and gifted pianist, would be remembered only for the fortress- like garbage dump they created to insulate themselves from the world around them. The author never really delved into the psychology of hoarding and avarice, something that readers might have profited from.