Lowestoft Chronicle Editor Reviews So Many Doors

“Pulitzer Prize-nominated novelist Oakley Hall delivers an affecting, murderous tale of love and desire, jealousy and shame in the years following the Great Depression in this newly reissued crime novel.

First published by Random House in 1950, So Many Doors is the debut novel by influential American writer Hall, an English professor emeritus at UC Irvine and author of 25 books, who died in 2008.

During his distinguished career, Hall won numerous awards, including the Wrangler Award and the Western Writers of America (WWA) Spur Award for his magazine pieces. His western novel Warlock, a finalist for the 1958 Pulitzer Prize, was made into a film by Twentieth Century-Fox starring Henry Fonda and Anthony Quinn, and his 1963 book, The Downhill Racers, was later filmed by Paramount as Downhill Racer starring Robert Redford and Gene Hackman.

So Many Doors, which he wrote while studying at Columbia University, was initially overlooked when it came out in hardback, but the paperback went on to become a big seller and received wide critical acclaim. It is a dramatic, bleak tale about two inseparable lovers, consumed with overwhelming desire and corrupting jealousy, and the havoc their relationship causes to those around them.”

Nicholas Litchfield’s review of So Many Doors, Oakley Hall’s vivid, emotionally charged tale of spurned love, flawed passion and pride, caustic obsession, and distrust and despair, is featured today in the Lancashire Post and syndicated to 20 newspapers in the UK. You can read the review here.

Author: Editor

Founded in September 2009, Lowestoft Chronicle is a quarterly online literary magazine publishing travel-related fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction.