Brilliant brothers Langley and Homer Collyer are born into bourgeois New York comfort in settled times, their home a fin-de-siecle mansion on upper Fifth Avenue, their future rosy. But before he is out of his teens Homer begins to lose his sight, Langley returns from the War in Europe with his lungs seared by gas, and when the death of their parents in the influenza epidemic of 1918 leaves the brothers orphaned, they seem perilously ill-equipped to deal with the new era. Around Central Park carriages give way to motor cars, Prohibition to free love, but Homer and Langley adapt: their townhouse fills and empties and fills again, with servants, lodgers, tea-dancers and gangsters. They are mocked and spied on, embraced by hippies and besieged by bailiffs, but as the world turns ever more incomprehensible Homer and Langley hold fast to their principles of self-reliance, courage, kindness and love, and they endure.

E.L.多克托罗（1931— ），当代美国著名作家，生于纽约犹太人家庭，在哥伦比亚大学攻读戏剧硕士学位时参军。退伍后相继担任哥伦比亚电影公司审读员、新美国文库出版社编辑、日晷出版社总编辑，一九六九年起专事写作，并在美国多所大学执教。

多克托罗自一九六一年发表小说《欢迎来到艰难时代》至今笔耕不辍。主要作品还包括《但以理之书》、《雷格泰姆音乐》、《卢恩湖》、《诗人的生活》、《世界博览会》、《比利•巴思盖特》、《大进军》等。作品已经被翻译成三十多种文字。《纽约兄弟》是其最新一部长篇小说。

多克托罗曾获得美国国家图书奖，分别两度获得国家书评人协会小说奖、美国笔会/福克纳小说奖，伊迪丝•沃顿小说奖，美国艺术与人文学院威廉•迪恩•豪斯奖，以及由美国总统颁发的国家人文奖章。

多克托罗现居于纽约，担任纽约大学英美文学讲席教授。