The House of Doors

by Tan Twan Eng

Overview

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER, NPR, SLATE, THE FINANCIAL TIMES, AND A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE WORK

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE

From the bestselling author of The Garden of Evening Mists, a spellbinding novel about love and betrayal, colonialism and revolution, storytelling and redemption.

The year is 1921. Lesley Hamlyn and her husband, Robert, a lawyer and war veteran, are living at Cassowary House on the Straits Settlement of Penang. When “Willie” Somerset Maugham, a famed writer and old friend of Robert's, arrives for an extended visit with his secretary Gerald, the pair threatens a rift that could alter more lives than one.

Maugham, one of the great novelists of his day, is beleaguered: Having long hidden his homosexuality, his unhappy and expensive marriage of convenience becomes unbearable after he loses his savings-and the freedom to travel with Gerald. His career deflating, his health failing, Maugham arrives at Cassowary House in desperate need of a subject for his next book. Lesley, too, is enduring a marriage more duplicitous than it first appears. Maugham suspects an affair, and, learning of Lesley's past connection to the Chinese revolutionary, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, decides to probe deeper. But as their friendship grows and Lesley confides in him about life in the Straits, Maugham discovers a far more surprising tale than he imagined, one that involves not only war and scandal but the trial of an Englishwoman charged with murder. It is, to Maugham, a story worthy of fiction.

A mesmerizingly beautiful novel based on real events, The House of Doors traces the fault lines of race, gender, sexuality, and power under empire, and dives deep into the complicated nature of love and friendship in its shadow.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639731930
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	10/17/2023
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	26,265
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Tan Twan Eng was born in Penang and lived in various places in Malaysia as a child. His first novel, The Gift of Rain, was longlisted for the Man Booker. His second, The Garden of Evening Mists was a major international bestseller, shortlisted for the Man Booker, and winner of the Man Asia Literary Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. It was adapted into an award-winning film in 2019 that was directed by Tom Lin. Twan divides his time between Malaysia and South Africa.

Editorial Reviews

★ 08/07/2023

Tan (The Garden of Evening Mists) explores the power of storytelling in this intoxicating outing. At Cassowary House in Penang, Malaya, in 1921, Lesley Hamlyn prepares to receive “Willie” Somerset Maugham, the famed English writer and friend of her husband, Robert. Increasingly drawn to Willie—who is desperate for new material for a novel to stave off bankruptcy—Lesley gradually unburdens herself to the author, unearthing a trove of long-buried secrets ranging from the personal to the political. Tan seamlessly merges fact and fiction as he explores the underlying tensions in both Lesley and Willie’s marriages, as well as Lesley’s intriguing involvement with the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat Sen during his 1910 sojourn in Penang. A side plot involves Lesley’s friend Ethel Proudlock, another real-life figure, who stood trial for the murder of her fellow Englishman in Kuala Lumpur. As in Tan’s other works, the narrative dwells on memory and loss, its lush, dreamy prose evoking the bygone days of colonial pre-WWII British Malaya amid musings on life’s ephemeral nature, while never losing its eye for injustice: “For a woman to be remembered,” Lesley laments, “she has to either be a queen or a whore. But for those of us who lead normal, mundane lives, who will remember us?” This is a stunner. Agent: Jessica Woollard, David Higham Assoc. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

[Tan] can write with lyrical generosity and beautiful tact . . . lovely, drifting, dreamlike . . . Exquisite.” —The New Yorker

“The House of Doors will draw you into its mesh of secrets and subterfuge.” —The New York Times

“Entrancing . . . lushly atmospheric . . . There's much to untangle and savor in this exquisite novel . . . Tan has pulled off not just a captivating novel, but an ingenious twist that explores how literature works its magic.” —NPR

“Captivating . . . exquisite. . . I'll remember The House of Doors for its smart cross-cultural excursions and its indelible images.” —Wall Street Journal

“The book's elaborate structure is itself a house of many doors, a metaphor for the hidden truths within . . . Eng employs masterful control, and we follow his thread to a satisfying ending.” —The San Francisco Chronicle

“A magnetic tale of love, betrayal, and colonialism.” —Entertainment Weekly

“[This] exquisitely atmospheric novel has the high gloss of a 1940s Hollywood melodrama . . . Out of these characters' stifled yearnings and rare moments of transcendence, Tan has made a ravishingly romantic novel.” —Laura Miller, Slate

“Tan effortlessly fuses fiction and fact as he paints a portrait of Maugham's trip to Malaysia, his desperate search for a new writing subject, colonialism, and the restraints of heteronormative marriage.” —Time

“Based on actual events, [The House of Doors] plumbs timeless issues of race, gender, and sexuality . . . Sublime, elegant prose from the mind of a gifted storyteller.” —Toronto Star

“Tan Twan Eng spins a tale of colonial scandal and intrigue in The House of Doors . . . solid, well-crafted . . . engrossing.” —The Boston Globe

“Brilliant.” —The Washington Post

“The House of Doors is propelled by fascinating characters, the tension over their gradual revelations and Eng's exquisite writing . . . an arresting, melancholy story about romantic complications.” —The Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Vibrant . . . [Tan] excels at setting an atmospheric mood, whether it be in a bustling and exotic enclave or a home where secrets are traded over tea and gin.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“[Tan] keeps getting better . . . Mesmerizing.” —Ken Follet, The Week

“An ambitious, elaborate fiction about fictions . . . a portrait of the artist in crisis, a meditation on how and why we tell stories and a heated courtroom drama.” —The Guardian

“Expertly constructed, tightly plotted and richly atmospheric.” —Financial Times (UK)

“What elevates Eng's book is the sheer beauty of his writing – restrained, elegant, precise, every detail accurate, every line considered . . . He resides in the very top row. The sentences here remind me of Shirley Hazzard, or perhaps James Salter. I can offer little higher praise.” —Times Literary Supplement (UK)

“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 House of Doors is a finely accomplished piece of work.” —Sunday Times (UK)

“Lyrical and lovely . . . This book transports readers . . . and its more than worth the price of the ticket.” —The ABC News Podcast

“Exquisite . . . Tan takes on a behemoth task here: combining sensational fact and intimate fiction in a British colonial Asian setting complicated by white privilege, politics, social hypocrisy, gender inequity, racism, homophobia, and more . . . [He] succeeds in delivering another intricate literary gift.” —Booklist, Starred Review

“The narrative dwells on memory and loss, its lush, dreamy prose evoking the bygone days of colonial pre-WWII British Malaya amid musings on life's ephemeral nature, while never losing its eye for injustice . . . This is a stunner.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“Graceful and well-researched.” —Kirkus Reviews

“The House of Doors is a fascinating, beautiful book . . . One doesn't have to know anything about Somerset Maugham to appreciate it, but the echoes make the work even richer.” —The New York Journal of Books

“A gorgeous meditation on the power of storytelling . . . Tan weaves a braided and intricate plot, bringing his characters to life with prose that is lush and evocative.” —World Literature Today

“Tan's talent as a writer is obvious . . . his prose is lush and effortless.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“In this bold historical fiction, he courageously exposes his motherland's flaws, exploring thorny issues of race, racism, gender and gender preference, bigotry, infidelity, and colonial power in richly mannered, atmospheric, and expressive prose, which is simply beautiful . . . no one can argue with the ambition, ardency, and achievement of Eng's complex latest.” —Air Mail

“Tan's eye for detail and understated storytelling bring a subtle edge to this thoughtful, atypical historical novel that searches for the emotional truth behind the facts.” —BookPage

“Tan weaves era-specific details with timeless human desires, creating an evocative, immersive reading experience.” —The Adroit Journal

“Atmospheric . . . Tan Twan Eng weaves love, duty, betrayal, colonialism, and redemption into the narrative.” —Christian Science Monitor

“Beguiling . . . A wonderful antidote to comfort us in these perilous times.” —The Arts Fuse

“Tan's novel, gripping for any reader, holds special appeal for fans of Maugham and his work . . . [It] plays clever games with the connections between fiction and history.” —Chapter 16

“The House of Doors is brilliantly observed and full of memorable characters. It is so well-written, everything so effortlessly dramatized, the narrative so well structured and paced, that this is a book that will mesmerize readers far into the future.” —Colm Tóibín, author of THE MAGICIAN

“This is historical fiction at its best-a novel that doesn't feel as though it was written about a time but rather as though it was written directly from that time. The House of Doors is immersive, transporting, and exquisitely crafted.” —Cristina Henríquez, author of THE BOOK OF UNKNOWN AMERICANS

“An amazingly transporting novel about love, desire, and duty, The House of Doors does what the very best stories do - it draws us into many fascinating worlds at once: The British Empire's incursions into South-East Asia; the secret life of one of England's finest writers; a forgotten murder trial playing out in the Kuala Lumpur courts a century ago. Weaving all this together with great skill and power, bringing the reader a surfeit of pleasure, Tan Twan Eng also teaches us a crucial lesson: never trust a writer.” —Jonathan Lee, author of THE GREAT MISTAKE and HIGH DIVE

“The House of Doors is a tremendous feat of literary imagination. Highly evocative, richly observed and entirely convincing, it is a tour de force!” —William Boyd, author of ANY HUMAN HEART and TRIO

“This marvelous novel evokes the British empire in its final heyday. Sun Yat Sen, the great fighter for Chinese independence, appears in its pages, as does that masterly betrayer of expatriate secrets, the short story writer Somerset Maugham. In fact, Tan Twan Eng's gripping book could almost have been written by Maugham himself.” —Anthony Everitt, author of ALEXANDER THE GREAT and AUGUSTUS

From the Publisher

2023-07-15
A historical novel about W. Somerset Maugham’s sojourn to Malaysia and the secrets he discovered there.

Eng’s third novel is mainly set in 1921, when the globe-trotting, world-famous author of Of Human Bondage visited the coastal province of Penang. He’s a guest in the sizable home of Lesley and Robert Hamlyn, a married British couple with a frosty relationship, and “Willie” is soon determined to figure out what’s under the ice. (It’s a useful distraction from learning he’s lost his life’s savings in a bad investment.) Lesley, we learn, was once close to the rising Chinese leader Sun Yat Sen; she was also a close friend of Ethel Proudlock, a woman who stood accused of murder, killing a man who attempted to rape her. (Maugham would use Proudlock’s sensational trial and other elements of his Malaysia trip as fodder for his 1926 story collection, The Casuarina Tree.) Alternating between Lesley’s and Willie’s perspectives, Eng tracks two inveterate gossips busily uncovering years’ worth of seductions, infidelities, marriages of convenience, and other secrets. (Willie’s status as a closeted gay man is a key part of the story, and he’s not the only one in the closet.) The title refers to a refuge Lesley finds where she might imagine becoming “a different woman, living a different life.” Yet for a story so suffused with matters of sex, violence, and long-running resentment, the novel operates at a surprisingly low boil and is mannered almost to a fault. Some of that effect is a tactic, Eng evoking Maugham’s subdued style in understated revelations of secret lives, and the writing is graceful and well-researched. Still, the novel at times labors to capture the passions that consume its characters’ lives.

A restrained look at a society working to keep up appearances.

Kirkus Reviews