'The House of Doors' offers an ingenious twist, exploring how literature works magic
The writer W. Somerset Maugham plays a central role Tan Twan Eng's entrancing new novel that encompasses at-the-time risky interracial and homosexual love stories and a scandalous murder trial.
Mention the writer W. Somerset Maugham and the name might evoke a fond recollection of his most popular novels, Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, and The Razor's Edge. Maugham's critical self-assessment — possibly apocryphal — may also come up. The story goes that he placed his work "in the very first row of the second tier."
In fact, Maugham (1874-1965), who plays a central role in Tan Twan Eng's entrancing new novel, is an inspired choice for a character. Tan's narrative, set largely in 1921 in Penang,
