This is the first novel I have read by this author and I think I have to treat myself to his other titles.

The book is beautifully written and constructed and evokes the atmosphere of Penang so vividly that you can sense the humidity, hear the sounds, smell the food, feel the rain. It depicts a colonial society with all its secrets, obligations to socialize with the right people, avoid being seen in the wrong company.

The main characters are Lesley, dissatisfied wife of a famous lawyer on the one hand, and W Somerset Maugham on the other, both troubled by complex relationships. There are cross-cultural affairs which have to be kept hidden not only from spouses but also from everybody else. There's also a murder, an interesting plot within a plot. And then there's a Chinese revolutionary raising funds for his cause. So a lot is going on, but such is the clarity of the writing and the clear plot development that it flows beautifully and Lesley finds a sad kind of peace at last.

Tan Twan Eng may not be a prolific writer, but his books are well worth waiting for. His sense of time and place is exceptional, with this novel set in Penang, an island off the coast of what is now Malaysia. It paints a vivid picture of a time when the British believed they had the only culture worth anything at all, and the local Malays and Chinese people were lesser beings. Of course there were many exceptions, and Lesley and her husband Robert became rather too entangled with Chinese people and politics. Add to that a fictional biography of the writer William Somerset Maugham and you have a recipe for a stunning, gripping and wonderfully engaging historical novel. Maugham and his ‘secretary’ Gerald are invited to stay with Lesley and Robert on an extended visit and their time in Penang coincides with a fascinating period in Chinese history, with the revolution being plotted from Sun Yat Sen’s base in Penang. Several intertwined stories here, but they are woven seamlessly together in this literary masterpiece.

(II have worked in Penang and can testify to the accuracy of Tan Twan Eng’s descriptions of the island -it was a joy to read about and recognise so many places I knew in this island paradise). .

Five years or so ago, I decided to read all of Somerset Maugham’s novels and short stories. It started with a chance encounter – I was attracted to a discounted copy of Of Human Bondage in the Waterloo Foyles after reading something (a Twitter thread perhaps?) about the film adaptation. The little I knew of Somerset Maugham was that he was also the author of The Painted Veil, the Edward Norton film version of which had taken me wholly by surprise with its sensitivity; of Ashenden, which I’d read in a classic spy novel phase; and that my very Year 7 English teacher, who was very influential on me, proudly promoted his work in defiance of the prevailing academic view.


I loved Of Human Bondage and having decided on my new project I, rather foolishly, set about the Maugham bibliography from top down with the Famous Ones first: The Painted Veil, The Moon and Sixpence, Cakes and Ale, and The Razor’s Edge, before the short stories (of which the first one in the Vintage edition, Rain, is as famous as any novel – and also adapted into a fascinating pre-Code film). By this point I was convinced I had discovered my new Favourite English Author, after having previously got obsessive about Patrick Hamilton, Graham Greene and Anthony Trollope.

But oh how I was disappointed by the remaining books. And so many of them. There are some enjoyable vignettes in The Narrow Corner and Christmas Holiday, and I always enjoy vicarious literary travel, but heavens: the early English ones (Liza of Lambeth, Mrs Craddock, the Merry-Go-Round) and the late bored ones (Then and Now, Catalina) are some of the most tedious books I’ve trudged through, clear signs of an early 20th century writer building and then living off a scandalous reputation and insouciantly writing to commission.

My enthusiasm for Willie sapped, I stopped there – I didn’t read any biographies (as I had done with Hamilton and Greene) or his non-fiction. Ridiculously, that means I’m still ignorant of On a Chinese Screen, his sketches of China during his 1919-20 travels there (although I understand it focuses more on the Westerners he meets there). I must correct this oversight.

Tan Twan Eng seems to have been smarter Maugham fan than me – no surprise for a Booker-shortlisted author. I also haven’t read The Garden of Evening Mists, though I can attest that it has been in my Amazon wishlist for nearly 12 years and I must have picked it up half a dozen times. I have no particular reason for never getting round to it, but I will now on the strength of its long awaited follow up, House of Doors, for which he credits no fewer than six Maugham biographies in his Acknowledgements.


House of Doors seems to have been inspired by one of those curious quirky overlaps of wildly different historical figures, like how both PG Wodehouse and Raymond Chandler were at Dulwich College together, or that the last remaining US Civil War widow only died in 2021. Because ‘Willie’ is one of the twin stars in this Penang-set novel, the other being Sun Yat-sen who was resident (albeit a decade earlier than Maugham) in 1910 before returning to China in the vanguard of the Xinhai revolution.

With not one but two dominant characters, it is no fault that the plot itself is rather slight. ‘Willie’ has come to the Straits Settlement in 1921 to stay with colonial types Lesley and Robert Hamlyn; a decade earlier, Lesley had had an affair with a Chinese man (Willie suspects Sun Yat-sen). Unlike most Europeans in the Straits Settlements, the Hamlyns are interested in China and Chinese people – perhaps rather too intimately. It is through the Straits Chinese – and inspired by the revolutionary Sun – that Lesley rebels from the constraints of her marriage. This affair coincided with the real trial of Ethel Proudlock which forms a key secondary plotline (a justifiable liberty by Tan, as the trial was a year later than Sun’s stay), about which Maugham wrote The Letter – also adapted to a film (those filmmakers sure did love Maugham). It’s not a calamitous spoiler to say that Robert Hamlyn also has his secrets.


Using real historical figures as fictional characters can be a risky move, but I felt in safe hands from the moment Somerset Maugham appeared. Tan captures his blasé, unseemly manner wonderfully, including an idiosyncratic pattern of speech. He is a hot mess, who loves nothing ‘more than snuffling out people’s scandals and secrets’. He even has Willie skinny-dipping and gives him something approximating a sex scene – which doubtless the old boy would have loved. Sun – Sun Wen at this time – is meticulous and powerful, but mercenary and kept more at a distance from us, which feels equally fitting – at the time of his visit, after all, Sun had been ‘deported from every place [he’d] set foot in’, as one character remarks. Tan himself acknowledges in Maugham’s voice: ‘a writer’s job is to fill in the gaps’.

Unsurprisingly, Tan finds the similarities between the two men:

‘His son left Penang many years ago to fight for Sun Yat-sen,’ she said.

Curious, Willie thought, how the Chinaman’s name kept bobbing up from her lips.

‘You remind me of him, you know,’ Lesley went on. ‘I thought so the first time I say you.’

‘In what way?’

‘Your fastidiousness over your clothes.’ She tapped the skin above her lips. ‘Your perfectly groomed moustache. The deceptively disinterested air you give off when you observe people from the corner of your eye.’ She leaned back at a slight angle, taking the measure of him from head to toe. ‘And you were both doctors too. Fancy that.’

‘First time I’ve ever been likened to a Chinaman.’

House of Doors is an enchanting book. I loved the sense of place – I don’t know Penang at all, but came away with a strong feel for the nature, the architecture and the people (at least of the 1920s). There’s a gentle poking of the colonial sensibilities (Mrs Millicent Skinner’s Friday musical evenings, the Macalisters showing off their electric lights) combined with an empathetic understanding of them. I loved its wit, lyricism and romanticism, which oscillates between earnest and nonchalant. Tan even just about gets away with lines such as ‘that night, side by side, we drifted among the galaxies of the sea-stars, while far, far above us the asterisks of light marked out the footnotes on the page of eternity’ – not many would.

Unsurprisingly, I also loved the portrayal of Sun, and the many references to Maugham’s work, some explicit, some oblique: I picked up Ashenden, the Moon and Sixpence and the Painted Veil, as well as those explicitly referenced, and I’m sure I missed more. I’ll always be fond of Willie, the hot mess.

Absolutely stunning writing by Tan Twan Eng. This is a beautifully crafted novel and an absolute joy to read. You have to wait a long time for a new novel by this author but it is so worth it. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review of the book.

I loved Tan Twan Eng's first two books so I was excited to read 'The House of Doors', his first novel in over a decade. This is another historical novel, this time set in Penang exploring memory and forbidden love.

We first meet narrator Lesley Hamlyn in 1947 in Karoo, South Africa; she has been widowed for several years but the delivery of an edition of W. Somerset Maugham's volume of short stories 'The Casuarina Tree' casts her mind back to 1921 when the writer (addressed as Willie) and his secretary Gerald, stayed with Lesley and her husband Robert at their home in Penang. During his visit, Lesley ends up telling him about the events of 1910, including her discovery of Robert's infidelity, her friend Ethel Proudlock's murder trial for shooting a man she accused of raping her, and Lesley's own involvement with the campaign of Chinese revolutionary leader Dr Sun Yat Sen. Willie, facing his own personal crisis, wrestles with how to tell Lesley's story without embarrassing her and Robert among the small world of Europeans settlers in the Straits.

This is another beautifully written novel; Tan Twan Eng's prose exquisitely evokes a sense of time and place. Alternating between Lesley's first-person and Willie's third-person perspectives, the novel explores the gulf between public and private through a number of relationships which must remain secret to avoid scandal because of the prevailing attitudes towards marriage, sexuality and race. This is symbolically reflected by the eponymous 'house of doors', whose unadorned front doors conceal its more vibrant interior. The double framing of the events of 1910 with the 1921 and 1947 sections is particularly effective and moving in showing how feelings alter with the passage of time.

This novel was well worth the wait and did not disappoint. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review.

You have to wait a long time for a Tan Twan Eng novel (this being his third), but once again the wait is worth it. This is a work of fiction, but it features some real characters and some true events. I don't always like blending fact with story, but Tan does a good job of it. A bit of research after reading suggested he stuck to the truth where appropriate - for example, the facts about Maugham are well established and have been covered in various biographies.

The narrators are Lesley, a fictional British woman who has lived her whole life in Malaysia, and Willie - better known as the author W Somerset Maugham. The action is split between the 1920s, where Willie is staying with Lesley and her husband on Penang, and the 1910s, as Lesley tells him the story of events that happened to her at that time. The story begins and ends in South Africa in the 1940s, where Lesley has moved. The story is gently paced but compelling - Tan has a way of writing with controlled calm that draws you completely into his world. It's not a conventionally thrilling book, but before you know it you've read for far longer than you intended.

Maugham based some of his stories on real life tales he heard whilst travelling the world. This novel imagines how he hard about the true life story that inspired his short story 'The Letter' in his collection 'The Casuarina Tree'. The true story - that of Ethel Proudlock, a white woman who shot dead a fellow colonialist after he allegedly attacked her - is part of the events that Lesley narrates to Willie whilst he stays with them. I rather liked the irony that Maugham's own technique has been used here, this time with him as one of the real people whose life is partly fictionalised. The portrayal of Maugham is sympathetic, and indeed most of the characters are likeable.

The story doesn't particularly go into the ethics of colonialism - readers will have their own feelings about this contentious topic - instead describing how colonialists lived in Penang at the time and leaving readers to their own thoughts about whether they should have been there at all. Tan's love for Penang, who hails from there, shines through in the writing and I have a genuine desire to visit one day. Although thanks to his excellent descriptive writing, I feel like I have been there already. You know a book is good when you look up from it expecting to see tropical sunshine and instead find yourself in a dreary UK flat!

It's difficult to sum this book up in a review in a way that does it justice. Like any good book, the best thing I can recommend you do is read it yourself. I would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys literary fiction, and in particular those with an interest in Malaysia or early 20th century colonial times.

*A big thank-you to Tan Twan Eng, Canongate, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
My third novel by the Author, highly anticipated after years of silence, centres around historic figures, the main one being W. Somerset Maughan, whose visit to Penang in early 1920s is one of the plots.
I cannot praise enough beautiful prose and descriptions of Malaysia, especially its nature, and the plots masterfully interwoven. I have read some novels by WSM but know little of his private life, so The House of Doors fills in the gaps in my literary education.
Tan Twan Eng's latest novel was definitely worth waiting for!

A beautiful historic work of fiction with a great sense of time and place. Lesley and Robert live in the Malayan districe of Panang, Lesley , a society hostess, entertains whilst Robert is a high powered lawyer. Into their lives one day comes William Somerset Maughan, effectionately known as Willie. Willie is greatly troubled by his sham marriage, and Lesley proves a wonderful listener but equally as her world collapses she finds comfort from the great writer. She discloses her admiration for a revolutionary and admits to a clandestine love affair that lasted many years but was ultimately doomed, and equally scandalously discloses her relationship to a woman accused of rape many years ago. The writing is sublime using events and historical figures to create a work of fiction that I devoured in 2 sittings..."the sea that was eternal yet ceaselessly changing, from wave to wave, swell to swell"...."All of us will be forgotten eventually. Like a wave on the ocean, leaving no trace that it had once existed"....."I lay in bed for a while, listening to the drowsy waves as the light outside changed, the ink of night diluting to dawn."........"While we are living, the air sustains us, but the very instant we stop breathing, that same air immediately sinks its teeth into us. What keeps us alive will also, in the end consume us."....... Highly recommend and many thanks to NG for a gratis copy in exchange for an honest review and that is what I have written

I count Tan Twan Eng’s first two books amongst my very favourite novels, so I was a little hesitant in starting The House of Doors, fearing it might be disappointing in comparison. I needn’t have worried. His latest, ten years in the making, is every bit as wonderful as the first two, maybe even better.

Right from the start I was blown away by the beauty of the writing. Both the opening and closing (set in South Africa) grabbed my emotions. In between I became engrossed by the story, place and characters. I was transported to humid tropical evenings in early 20th c. Penang with its cloying expatriate community and the limiting social and sexual mores of the time. Tan’s descriptions made me feel that I was there in Malaya, experiencing the sites, sounds and smells of the tropical days and nights.

The itself story is meticulously developed, drawing the reader progressively into the lives of the characters during two time periods, 1910 and 1921. The characters include some historical figures - Sun Yat Sen and Somerset Maugham for example - and some fictionalised ones. The storytelling alternates between the perspectives of Somerset Maugham and the wife of his host in Penang, Lesley Hamlyn, who had spent most of her life in Malaya and was married to the much older Robert. Lesley weaves the stories of the real life murder trial of a British woman and her own explicit love affair that took place at the House of Doors. She knows that by telling him her part of the story she risks destroying her marriage and the reputations of others.

Reading The House of Doors was like luxuriating in the history of a tropical paradise, one with intrigue and where things are very much not like they at first seem. It was a wonderful book, that I whole heartedly recommend.

A new novel from Tan Twan Eng is a rare thing. He last published in 2011 The Garden of Evening Mists, which was short-listed for the Booker (and was my favourite of that year). This, only his third novel, come highly anticipated.

The House of Doors has, at its centre, a number of true life figures, most notably W. Somerset Maugham. He is not the central figure here, but his shadow hangs heavy over events.

It is Penang, 1921. Robert and Lesley Hamlyn live a life of high society. He is a lawyer, and she is a society hostess. When their friend Willie comes to stay, Lesley's friendship with him blossoms, but the more she comes to know the man and his history, the more she realises that the famed writer wears masks, that he hides his true self, and that he takes from life more than he gives.

It is not a damning portrait of Maugham, but through his insightful prose, Tan Twang Eng brings us as close to this man as any biography. That he then fills his novel with other stories, other lives, and a deep sense of place - you can literally feel the love for Penang on every page - he turns what might have been an ordinary piece of auto-fiction into something for more meatier, deep and fascinating. This is another magnificent novel from a great writer, perhaps not quite hitting the heights of The Garden of Evening Mists, but still an experience to savour.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.

A wonderful historical novel that draws on Somerset Maugham’s biography to weave a tale of the Far East that brings together personal and political stories to create its fictional tapestry.

The House of Doors begins and ends in South Africa but the heart of the novel takes place in Penang, which is beautifully evoked. Locations faultlessly capture the early twentieth century and the colonial world that Maugham and his generation experienced. Much of the plot is linked to Maugham’s famous short story collection, The Casuarina Tree, which he wrote following his visit to Penang dramatised in the novel.

Maugham’s story, set largely in 1921, is set within the the larger story of Lesley Hamlyn and her husband, Robert. This is a glorious literary device because not only does it introduce a fascinating parallel tale, but it allows us to see Maugham from a different perspective.

Lesley’s story essentially begins in 1910 and so the book moves over the period that included the First World War, showing the characters on either side of it.

Lesley is linked to the story of an English woman on trial for murder in Kuala Lumpur in the early twentieth century, a story that has a basis in history. Alongside these stories is another historical story: of Sun Wen, a Chinese revolutionary separated from his homeland but ultimately to return to become President of China.

The house of doors of the title is both a literal house in Penang in which a key relationship takes place and a metaphor of the different pathways that lie behind the deceptive simplicity of individual lives.

It is a novel about affairs, betrayal and sexuality, but ultimately about faithfulness and what that might mean in a duplicitous world.

This is a book equally rich in history and metaphor. It has been a long wait for a novel from Tan Twan Eng but The House of Doors is well worth the wait.

For me a literary masterpiece! A novel that reads like a classic. The author has masterfully captured the atmosphere of the times depicted, of the characters and the events as well. He painted a portrait of Maugham revealing him as an intriguing personality (his obvious talent, his scandalous retelling of existing people in his novels). Beautiful descriptions of Penang with its highly fascinating history have kept me absorbed throughout the novel. Faithful to the high society, his evocation of hypocrisy and the danger of homosexuality give the novel an excellent psychological insight of this era. Excellent writing! I did not know the author, and now I want to read all his books! Highly recommended!
I received a complimentary ARC of this novel from NetGalley and I am leaving voluntarily an honest review.

A new book by Tan Twang Eng is exciting, they come along so rarely. This novel is a fictionalisation or real lives and real events. Usually, I find a non fiction account more interesting than the novelisation. I spent more time when reading Booth googling the people and events than reading the book. However in this instance Tan Twan Eng's writing kept my attention. The sense of place is good - Penang is Tan Twang Eng's hometown so it should be, but he also has mastered the sense of the era. The mistake made by many writers is to research a time and then throw everything into the book., This book places itself by not having any anachronisms. The first part of the book sets you up, introducing the time and place and establishing characters. We (and the fictionalised Somerset Maugham) realise that there is a story behind one of the characters that needs to be told. The second half of the book takes us back and unravels the mystery. It is a quiet book, with a well told story. It took me skillfully into another time and held my interest. Even if it hadn't been based on real characters I would have believed every moment of the book.