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#BookReview #Ad The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng @canongatebooks

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The House of DoorsAbout the Book

It is 1921 and at Cassowary House in the Straits Settlements of Penang, Robert Hamlyn is a well-to-do lawyer and his steey wife Lesley a society hostess. Their lives are invigorated when Willie, an old friend of Robert’s, comes to stay.

Willie Somerset Maugham is one of the greatest writers of his day. But he is beleaguered by an unhappy marriage, ill-health and business interests that have gone badly awry. He is also struggling to write. The more Lesley’s friendship with Willie grows, the more clearly she sees him as he is – a man who has no choice but to mask his true self.

Format: eARC (320 pages)              Publisher: Canongate
Publication date: 18th May 2023 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

I loved both of Tan Twan Eng’s previous books – The Gift of Rain and The Garden of Evening Mists – but, boy, has he made us wait a long time for his next one. It’s been well worth the wait though because The House of Doors is absolutely brilliant. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it pop up on the longlist for next year’s Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

Set in Penang (the author’s birthplace) and moving beween 1910 and 1921, it’s an intimate and nuanced portrait of the complications and consequences of relationships that must remain clandestine, such as that between Willie Somerset Maugham and Gerald Haxton, nominally his secretary but actually his lover.

The book opens in 1947 as Lesley Hamlyn, living on a remote farm in Doomfontein, South Africa, receives a package containing a copy of the book, The Casuarina Tree by W (Willie) Somerset Maugham. It evokes memories of the author’s two week stay in 1921 with her and her late husband, Robert, at Cassowary House, their former home in Penang. It was a place Lesley loved and was reluctant to leave but did so out of a mixture of loyalty to her husband, and despair. The book also has another significance for Lesley, one which the reader will only discover in the moving final chapter of the book.

Willie arrives in Penang in 1921 weakened by sickness from his travels through the Far East and beset by money troubles, a situation he fears may scupper his relationship with Gerald who has become used to a luxury lifestyle. In order to restore his finances, he needs to find material for his next book. Willie and Lesley form an immediate bond, both being in marriages that provide a form of cover from society gossip and speculation.  Lesley begins to unburden herself to Willie, sharing details of a secret relationship that took place ten years earlier as well as her involvement with charismatic Chinese revolutionary, Sen Yat-Sen (a real life figure).  She also reveals her connection with a (real life) murder case that scandalised the British inhabitants of the Straits Settlement and the Federated Malay States.

Willie uses her recollections as material for the stories in The Casuarina Tree. Reading the published book, and in particular the story ‘The Letter’, Lesley observes that ‘He had woven it into something that was familiar to me, yet also uncanny; factual, but at the same time completely fictional.’  Tan Twan Eng has harnessed the same writer’s instinct to blend historical fact with fiction in order to create this wonderful novel.

Those who have read Tan Twan Eng’s previous novels won’t be surprised that there is wonderful descriptive writing that really brings to life the bustling streets of the ‘real’ Penang, i.e. the Penang that the white residents don’t see. There is also a wonderful scene in which Willie and Lesley go for an evening swim. ‘That night, side by side, we drifted among the galaxies of sea-stars, while far, far above us the asterisks of light marked out the footnotes on the page of eternity.’ Gorgeous.

The House of Doors of the title is an actual place in the novel but is also a metaphor for things that must remain hidden, often things more wonderful than the plain facade shown to the outside world.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Canongate via NetGalley.

In three words: Assured, intimate, moving

Try something similar: The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry

Tan Twan EngAbout the Author

Tan Twan Eng was born in Penang, Malaysia. His debut novel The Gift of Rain was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007 and has been widely translated. The Garden of Evening Mists won the Man Asian Literary Prize 2012 and the 2013 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012 and the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The House of Doors is his third novel. (Photo: Publisher author page)

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#BookReview #Ad The Letter Reader by Jan Casey

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The Letter ReaderAbout the Book

She read their secrets during the war. Now she cannot forget them…

1941. London. Keen to do her bit in the war, Connie Allinson joins the WRNS and is posted as a letter censor. Her task: to read and alter correspondence to ensure no sensitive information crosses enemy lines. At first, she is not sure she’s up to it, but is soon drawn in by the letters she reads, and their secrets…

1967. Doncaster. Bored of her domestic life, Connie desperately wants a job, but her controlling husband Arthur won’t hear of it. Looking for an escape, and plagued by memories of letters she read during the war, she makes a bid for freedom and starts secretly tracking down their authors. Will uncovering their past give Connie the key to her present? And will she be able to find them all before Arthur discovers what she is keeping from him?

Format: eARC (384 pages)            Publisher: Aria
Publication date: 11th May 2023 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

I found the details of Connie’s war work absolutely fascinating and obviously the product of extensive research by the author.  Of course, I was aware of the censorship of mail but I was unaware of the meticulous processes that lay behind it and the extent of the training censors undertook in order to be able to spot many different types of codes that could be hidden in ordinary seeming correspondence. I could completely understand Connie’s joy whenever she spotted something suspicious. And I felt Connie’s sadness as she read letters with gossip from home that often, one sensed, hid the reality of daily deprivations and danger. And, of course, the possibility that the intended recipients of the letters might no longer be around to receive them.  Some of the letters leave a lasting impression on her. ‘She’d agonised about all of them during the war; worried about each of their dilemmas; been privy to their deepest, darkest thoughts and most hopeful moments.’

Connie’s wartime activities threw up some potentially interesting secondary characters – Dotty and the mysterious Angelique spring to mind – although they disappear quite quickly from the story, perhaps illustrating the transience of relationships during wartime.

Another of the standout elements of the book for me was the way the author recreated the 1960s, a period of many new things – in fashion (miniskirts and white boots) and music (the Monkees and the Beatles) – but also still with many remnants of the old.  As a child of the 60s, the mention of watching Z Cars on the television and eating pineapple upside-down cake evoked early memories.

It was sad to see Connie’s transformation from practical and resourceful woman to subservient wife, ground down by her husband Arthur’s controlling attitude and obsession for routine, even in their sex life. Theirs has become a stale, empty marriage full of regret and dashed hopes.  ‘It was as if they were ground down by each other in a way that bombs and blackouts and rations had never been able to achieve.’ Personally, I found it hard to see what Connie ever saw in Arthur. It seemed to me the warning signs were there from early on: his reluctance to allow Connie to become involved in war work at all and his vetoing of a wonderful opportunity she is offered, all dressed up as a desire to keep her safe. Although he writes at one point that he wants to be ‘her haven, her refuge and her sanctuary’, he ends up being almost her jailer, acting more like a husband from the 1860s than the 1960s. Today,  we would recognise some of his actions as coercive control.  There were moments later in the book when I had slight sympathy for him but this was countered by the thought that his actions had all come too late and were motivated more by self-pity than a genuine change of heart.  I did wonder, however, if  knowing more about his experiences during the war might have shed light on his actions and attitudes, especially his need for routine and control.

It was joyful to follow Connie’s attempts to break free from the shackles of her marriage, even if her search for the individuals whose letters she had read during the war seemed a little like obsession. Perhaps, more generously, it was a need to deal with ‘unfinished business’ or to find that life had been kinder to the correspondents than to her. Incidentally, I loved the way her brother and sister-in-law supported and encouraged her.

Jan Casey’s previous book, The Woman with the Map, was one of my top ten favourite books of 2022.  For me, The Letter Reader didn’t have quite the same emotional heft but I really liked the fascinating detail about postal censorship and the focus on the contribution made by women to the war effort.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Aria via NetGalley.

In three words: Emotional, authentic, fascinating

Try something similar: The Girl from Bletchley Park by Kathleen McGurl

Jan CaseyAbout the Author

Jan Casey’s novels, like her first – The Women of Waterloo Bridge – explore the themes of how ordinary people are affected by extraordinary events during any period in history, including the present. Jan is fascinated with the courage, adaptability and resilience that people rise to in times of adversity and for which they do not expect pay, praise or commendation. Jan is also interested in writing about the similarities, as opposed to the differences, amongst people and the ways in which experiences and emotions bind humans together.

Jan was born in London but spent her childhood in Southern California. She was a teacher of English and Drama for many years and is now a Learning Supervisor at a college of further education. When she is not working or writing, Jan enjoys yoga, swimming, cooking, walking, reading and spending time with her grandchildren.

Before becoming a published author, Jan had short stories and flash fictions published.

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