The House of Doors – Tan Twan Eng

Eng brings to life the languid last days of the British Empire in South Asia by spinning a very elaborate tale inspired by the visit of Somerset Maugham to Penang in 1921.  Maugham’s epigraph, “Fact and fiction are so intermingled in my work that now, looking back on it, I can hardly distinguish one from the other.”, provides the overarching description of the novel which manages to give Maugham and Sun Yat Sen credible speaking parts and weaves into it a notorious murder trial that appears in one of Maugham’s Short Stories.  Totally delightful and transporting. Colonial life never looked so alluring and benevolent.