In many neighborhoods lives the recluse, the odd neighbor surrounded by myth and mostly unknown to those who live around him or her. In some neighborhoods these characters are subject to torment by school children whose imaginations have run wild about the habits and life of the recluse. Growing up in New York as a child, author, E.L. Doctorow can recall reading about such eccentric recluses, a set of brothers who hoarded their belongings in their three-story Fifth Avenue home. Doctorow was among many others who became familiar with the Collyer brothers because they became an urban legend, …