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.
. 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."is an inspired choice for a character.
Willie, ever on the lookout for new material, sees his hostess as yet another"woman in the colonies stuck in an unhappy marriage." Lesley's husband Robert, 20 years her senior, suffers from the effects of gas poisoning from his service in WWI. To her consternation, he wants them to move to his brother's sheep farm in South Africa in the hopes of improving his health in a less humid climate.
Despite her husband's warnings to watch what she says to Willie —"He's my friend, but he's also a writer, and there's nothing he loves more than snuffling out people's scandals and secrets" — Lesley eventually lets down her guard. Her tale about how learning the truth behind her husband's infidelity freed her for the great love of her life is catnip to her celebrated houseguest — and the reader.
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