The House of Doors
by Tan Twan Eng
☆ Longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize
The House of Doors is another beautiful historical novel by Malaysian novelist Tan Twan Eng. Set in Penang, it’s told through the eyes of two people: Lesley Hamlyn, a Malaysian-born English woman married to a lawyer and the British novelist W. Somerset Maugham (Willie). It’s a wonderful fusion of fact and fiction, featuring also Sun Yat-sen—the Chinese revolutionary who served as the first president of the Republic of China. Sun Wen, as he liked to be called, spent time in Penang in 1910.
Recommendations from our site
“There are a lot of different strands to this novel, one of which is secrets. But it’s also about memory and loss, and the stories we tell to ourselves and to others. Set in 1921 in the Straits Settlements of Penang, we have Somerset Maugham and his lover coming to stay with the Hamlyns: Robert Hamlyn, a lawyer, and his wife Lesley a society hostess. The visit is uneasy. Everybody has secrets, and Somerset Maugham was notoriously good at persuading people to share them, and then, barely disguising the characters, using the stories to his own authorial advantage. With great artistry, Tan Twan Eng shows us how the unravelling of secrets leads to other stories.” Read more...
The Best Historical Fiction of 2024
Katharine Grant, Historical Novelist
