(11/16/2023)
It is 1921. Lesley Hamlyn and her better half, Robert, a legal counselor and war veteran, are residing at Cassowary House on the Waterways Settlement of Penang. At the point when "Willie" Somerset Maugham, a celebrated essayist and close buddy of Robert's, shows up for a lengthy encounter with his secretary Gerald, the pair undermines a crack that could modify a bigger number of lives than one.
Maugham, one of the extraordinary writers of his day, is overwhelmed: Having long secret his homosexuality, his troubled and costly marriage of accommodation becomes terrible after he loses his reserve funds — and the opportunity to go with Gerald. His vocation emptying, his wellbeing fizzling, Maugham shows up at Cassowary House needing a subject for his next book. Lesley, as well, is persevering through a marriage more deceptive than it initially shows up. Maugham thinks an issue, and, learning of Lesley's past association with the Chinese progressive, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, chooses to test further. Yet, as their kinship develops and Lesley trusts in him about existence in the Waterways, Maugham finds an undeniably more astonishing story than he envisioned, one that includes war and outrage as well as the preliminary of an Englishwoman accused of homicide. It is, to Maugham, a story deserving of fiction.
An enchantingly gorgeous novel in light of genuine occasions, The Place of Entryways follows the separation points of race, orientation, sexuality, and power under realm, and plunges profound into the muddled idea of affection and companionship in its shadow.