Death by newsprint

August 7, 2007 3:47 PM

Help me identify a story, written at least 40 years ago, about a guy who dies crushed under a pile of newspapers.

I'd like to track down a book my father remembers reading 40-50 years ago. Apparently the story opens with a police report about a guy (let's call him Mr. Jones) who has died in his town house, suffocated under a pile of newspapers; in fact, every inch of his place is crammed with newspapers from floor to ceiling. The rest is a flashback to Mr. Jones's life, and according to my father it somehow managed to make his unlikely end seem plausible -- "by the end, even though you knew what was coming, you really felt like this guy would be OK if he could just get a few more newspapers!"

posted by em to writing & language (10 comments total)

I don't know the name of the book, but could it be about the Collyer brothers?
posted by scody at 3:49 PM on August 7, 2007

I know this story. I will try to look through some of my anthologies from college to see if I can find it.
posted by trinity8-director at 3:57 PM on August 7, 2007

Could it be My Brother's Keeper? (I agree that it's likely to be at least something about the Collyer brothers... If not, maybe someone else from Squalor Survivors list of famous people who lived in squalor.)
posted by anaelith at 4:32 PM on August 7, 2007

Too Loud a Solitude?
posted by mekanic at 4:33 PM on August 7, 2007

Gee, I have heard this story my whole childhood life. Didn't everyone? If you don't clean your room you could die trapped inside like the Collyer brothers.
posted by caddis at 4:58 PM on August 7, 2007

Cool! The Collyer Brothers wiki page just came up as my random wikipedia homepage a few days ago.

Could it be this book?

If you figure out the answer, please let us know!
posted by prophetsearcher at 4:58 PM on August 7, 2007

Thanks for the quick responses!

He's pretty sure that it was presented as fiction -- it might have been inspired by the story of the Collyer brothers, but it wasn't explicitly about them. He says "My Brother's Keeper" looks like a strong possibility -- it was published at about the right time, and according to Wikipedia it was a Book-of-the-Month selection, which he says jibes with his reading habits at that age.
posted by em at 6:19 PM on August 7, 2007

Too Loud a Solitude - one of my very favorite-est books - is about a guy who collects books - not newspapers.
posted by Wolfie at 9:11 PM on August 7, 2007

We've ordered a copy of "My Brother's Keeper", in hopes that he'll be able to rule it in or out after reading it; I'll post an update then. I'm still eager to hear about other candidates, if any come to mind!
posted by em at 1:58 PM on August 9, 2007

My father reports that "My Brother's Keeper" is very likely the right book. Thanks for solving this mystery for us -- we've wondered about it for years!
posted by em at 7:27 PM on October 11, 2007