Novelist Lawrence Osborne on sexual repression, psychopaths and the British class system
The Bangkok-based writer tells Kate Whitehead how a middle-class boy from Sussex became one of Britain's most accomplished novelists.
British novelist Lawrence Osborne is a wonderful storyteller - and not just on the page. He's a raconteur of the old-school variety, the sort who holds court at the bar with ease. And although he has a reputation for being someone who likes a drink, when it comes to talking, it seems booze isn't required.
We meet over coffee at the Luxe Manor. Our window table overlooks another Tsim Sha Tsui hotel, which, as Osborne informs me, is one of the biggest brothels in the world. He's prone to exaggeration - surely part and parcel of being an engaging storyteller - and he's generous with his tales, there's no sense that he's holding anything back. He's also a dapper dresser, on this occasion wearing an ivory-coloured linen suit with a scarf wrapped around his neck (he is recovering from a sore throat) and smart leather shoes.
The conversation is fast and wide ranging. He has plenty of adventure stories, many of which begin with sweeping statements such as, "On the way down to the Gobi we stopped at a remote market to buy some caviar …" As you do.
He has been compared to Paul Bowles and Evelyn Waugh - both writers with severe cases of wanderlust - but describing him as a travel writer is the only thing that seems to ruffle Osborne's feathers.
"I don't know where this thing about me being a travel writer comes from. It's nothing to do with me, I hate travel writing. I don't do it - I do it a little bit, but not much. I don't believe in it, I think it's over. The world is so saturated now that you don't need it," he says.