From the author of The Garden of Evening Mists comes a characteristically elegant and atmospheric meditation on creativity, empire and public facades as W Somerset Maugham wrestles with writer's block in 1920s Penang.
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023
Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2024
Willie Somerset Maugham is one of the greatest writers of the early twentieth century. But in 1921 he is beleaguered by an unhappy marriage, ill-health and business interests that have gone badly awry. He is also struggling to write.
His friend Robert Hamlyn offers an escape in the Straits Settlements of Penang, where Robert's steely wife Lesley learns to see Willie as he is - a man who has no choice but to mask his true self.
As Willie prepares to leave, Lesley confides in him secrets of her own, including how she came to know the charismatic revolutionary Dr Sun Yat Sen. And more scandalous still, her connection to an Englishwoman charged with murder in the Kuala Lumpur courts - a tragedy drawn from fact, and worthy of fiction.
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 9781838858339
Number of pages: 320
Weight: 222 g
Dimensions: 198 x 128 x 20 mm
Edition: Main
Outstanding . . . The House of Doors again displays [Eng's] talent for atmospheric evocation of place and period . . . Beautifully detailed and encompassing the vagaries of Maugham's life, the contours of his creativity and the personal and political tensions covertly quivering through the sultry colony around him, The House of Doors is a finely accomplished piece of work - Sunday Times
Fascinating, engrossing and has given me infinite pleasure - COLM TÓIBÍN, Guardian
A tremendous feat of literary imagination. Highly evocative, richly observed and entirely convincing, it is a tour de force! - WILLIAM BOYD
Expertly constructed, tightly plotted and richly atmospheric - Financial Times
Sex, scandal and Somerset Maugham . . . an elegant meditation on oppression, repression and loneliness . . . The House of Doors pays tribute to storytelling itself as a means not just of memorialising, but recreating . . . imbued with quiet yearning, this a pleasurably old-fashioned novel - Daily Telegraph
Perfectly poised . . . a fascinatingly layered novel . . . Through this deceptively lulling atmosphere, Twan has woven a superb, quietly complex tale of love, duty and betrayal - Literary Review
If any book is going to beat Tan Twan Eng's The House of Doors to the Booker Prize, it'll have to be very good indeed - PHILIP PULLMAN
What elevates Eng's book is the sheer beauty of his writing - restrained, elegant, precise, every detail accurate, every line considered. Pain, loss and disappointment seep from every page, as do beauty and compassion . . . Tan Twan Eng resides in the very top row - Times Literary Supplement
A pleasure to read . . . Tan's style is formal, quiet, sedate but alive with detail - JOHN SELF, The Critic
This is Twan's third book, and he just keeps getting better. He is a somewhat spiritual writer, with a love of gardens, but the stories are always about the brutal consequences of ethnic strife, revolution,and war. The combination is mesmerising - KEN FOLLETT, The Week
I have loved both of Tan Twang Eng's previous novels and this was absolutely worth the wait. I devoured it in two sittings. What struck me about the narrative was how real each person's story felt.
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Firstly my thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Canongate for the opportunity to read this advance copy in return for an honest review.
This novel was surprisingly enjoyable and I can only imagine the considerable...
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‘The House of Doors’ combines meticulous research with inventive and beautifully written prose to produce a wonderful reading experience. Central to the story is a visit paid by ‘Willie’ (William Somerset Maughan) to... More
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