What Are the Most Interesting Themes in Fictional Writing About Thailand?

[lamyai3]

8 hours ago, RSD1 said:

I don't think I could stand to read another Thai bar girl story. The subject seems so overdone and pedestrian in 2025. But that's just me. Hope you enjoy it. 

 

Generally if I see a book with a title like "Hello big honey, my name Fon" I give it a wide berth. But there's a world of difference when it's a respected and established author like Theroux who writes well and can really evoke a sense of time and place. 

 

The best fiction I've read about the region generally is older stuff like Orwell "Burmese Days" (which also features a local liaison gone wrong), Somerset-Maugham's Far East literature etc. 

[Ben Zioner]

On 3/31/2025 at 5:17 PM, RSD1 said:

It's on the list of 20 already: Sex tourism, nightlife, and go-go bars

What bunch of hypocrites [or seniles] was expecting this topic to get at least 70% of the votes.

[RSD1]

3 hours ago, lamyai3 said:

 

Generally if I see a book with a title like "Hello big honey, my name Fon" I give it a wide berth. But there's a world of difference when it's a respected and established author like Theroux who writes well and can really evoke a sense of time and place. 

 

The best fiction I've read about the region generally is older stuff like Orwell "Burmese Days" (which also features a local liaison gone wrong), Somerset-Maugham's Far East literature etc. 

A couple of the authors I enjoyed when I first discovered Thailand were Collin Piprell, Dean Barrett and Roger Crutchley. They weren't literary geniuses, but their writing was lighthearted and entertaining. I'm trying to remember some of the other early authors that I read back then, but drawing a blank.
 

One of my favorite travel writing authors was Pico Iyer. He wasn't a fictional writer per se, but he wrote non-fiction with a real fiction kind of flare. I would say some of his writing was some of the best back then. 

[lamyai3]

1 hour ago, RSD1 said:

A couple of the authors I enjoyed when I first discovered Thailand were Collin Piprell, Dean Barrett and Roger Crutchley. They weren't literary geniuses, but their writing was lighthearted and entertaining. I'm trying to remember some of the other early authors that I read back then, but drawing a blank.
 

One of my favorite travel writing authors was Pico Iyer. He wasn't a fictional writer per se, but he wrote non-fiction with a real fiction kind of flare. I would say some of his writing was some of the best back then. 

 

I'd forgotten about Collin Piprell. Kicking Dogs was a blast! 

[RSD1]

Has anyone read Lawrence Osborne's novel the Glass Kingdom, published in 2020, and which is set in Bangkok?

 

It follows an American woman who arrives in the city with a suitcase full of cash, hiding out in a luxurious yet eerie apartment complex—the “Glass Kingdom” of the title. The story unfolds against the backdrop of Bangkok’s chaotic energy, blending suspense with Osborne’s signature atmospheric prose. This novel reflects his deep familiarity with the city, where he has resided for years.

 

Synopsis: Escaping New York for the anonymity of Bangkok, Sarah Mullins arrives in Thailand on the lam with nothing more than a suitcase of purloined money. Her plan is to lie low and map out her next move in a high-end apartment complex called the Kingdom, whose glass-fronted façade boasts views of the bustling city and glimpses into the vast honeycomb of lives within.

 

It is not long before she meets the alluring Mali doing laps in the apartment pool, a fellow tenant determined to bring the quiet American out of her shell. An invitation to Mali’s weekly poker nights follows, and—fueled by shots of yadong, good food, and gossip—Sarah soon falls in with the Kingdom’s glamorous circle of ex-pat women.

 

But as political chaos erupts on the streets below and attempted uprisings wrack the city, tensions tighten within the gilded compound. When the violence outside begins to invade the Kingdom in a series of strange disappearances, the residents are thrown into suspicion: both of the world beyond their windows and of one another. And under the constant surveillance of the building’s watchful inhabitants, Sarah’s safe haven begins to feel like a snare.

 

From a master of atmosphere and mood, The Glass Kingdom is a brilliantly unsettling story of civil and psychological unrest, and an enthralling study of karma and human greed.

 

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I've also come across 5 more fairly recent titles, but haven't read any of these either:

 

1 - Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad (2019)

This debut novel by a Thai-American author is a lyrical, multi-generational tale centered on Bangkok. It weaves together stories across time—past, present, and a speculative future—exploring the city’s evolution through its people, from missionaries and aristocrats to modern residents facing floods and urban decay.

 

2 - A Good True Thai by Sunisa Manning (2020)

Set in 1970s Thailand, including Bangkok, this novel follows three young characters—students from vastly different backgrounds—caught up in the political upheaval of the time. Manning, a Thai-American writer, crafts a poignant coming-of-age story with a sharp eye for cultural and historical detail. Its focus on personal and societal tension though it leans more historical than suspenseful.

 

3 - The King of Bangkok by Claudio Sopranzetti, Sara Fabbri, and Chiara Natalucci (2021, English edition)

This graphic novel, rooted in ethnographic research, follows a blind man’s journey from rural Thailand to Bangkok, culminating in the 2010 Red Shirt protests. The artwork and narrative combine to create a gritty, immersive portrait of the city’s underbelly and political strife.

 

4 - Comrade Aeon’s Field Guide to Bangkok by Emma Larkin (2021)

Written by a pseudonymous author with deep ties to Thailand, this novel intertwines the lives of characters across generations, from a revolutionary recluse to a maid haunted by a construction site’s ghosts. Set in Bangkok, it’s a slow-burn narrative with lush prose and a keen sense of place, exploring resistance, memory, and urban transformation.

 

5 - All at Sea by Julian Sayarer (2017)

This novel takes place partly in Thailand, including Bangkok, following a British cyclist reflecting on his travels and a lost love. Sayarer’s introspective, poetic writing captures the sensory overload of Thai settings with a melancholic edge.

 

 

 

[RSD1]

I should have mentioned this from the start for its literary quality, somehow I had forgotten: Michel Houllebecq’s controversial novel entitled "Platform". Summary below:

 

Platform (French: Plateforme) is a 2001 novel by French writer Michel Houellebecq (translated into English by Frank Wynne). It has received both great praise and great criticism, most notably for the novel's apparent condoning of sex tourism and Islamophobia. After describing Islam as "the most stupid religion" in a published interview about the book, Houellebecq was charged for inciting racial and religious hatred but the charges were ultimately dismissed, as it has been ruled that the right to free speech encompasses the right to criticize religions.

 

The novel and its author have been deemed "prophetic" or "prescient", as the last part depicts an Islamic terrorist attack which bears strong similarities with the bombings in Bali in October 2002, about a year later (and the novel was published on 27 August 2001, a few days before the 11 September 2001 attacks).

 

A similar coincidence, involving Houellebecq, Islam and terrorism, would occur 13 years later, when his novel Submission, dealing with Islam again (although in a more nuanced and less confrontational way), was published on 7 January 2015, the day of the Charlie Hebdo shooting.

 

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The story is the first-person narrative of a fictional character named Michel Renault, a Parisian civil servant who, after the death of his father and thanks to a hefty inheritance, engages in sex tourism in Thailand, where he meets a travel agent named Valérie. Valérie and Renault begin an affair, and, after moving back to France, hatch a plan with Valérie's boss (who works in the travel industry in the Aurore group, an allusion to the real-life Accor group) to launch a new variety of package holiday called "friendly tourism", implicitly aimed at Europeans looking for a sexual experience whilst on vacation. Single men and women—and even couples—are to be targeted, and would vacation in specially designed "Aphrodite Clubs".

 

Initially, the name "Venus clubs"—an allusion to the Villa Venus clubs dreamed of by Eric Veen in Vladimir Nabokov's classic Ada or Ardor—is suggested, but is rejected as being too explicit. It is decided that Thailand is the best location for the new clubs, with the advertising making it clear that Thai women would also be easily available. The tours are to be marketed predominantly to German consumers, as it is perceived that there will be less moral outrage in Germany than in France.

 

Michel, Valérie and her boss Jean-Yves travel to Thailand on one of their company's tours incognito and enjoy an idyllic holiday. They decide that they will move to Thailand permanently, to perpetuate the bliss they experience there. However, towards the end of their holiday, Muslim extremists commit a terrorist act in which Valérie is killed. Michel is left bereft, and at the end of the novel he travels back to Thailand to die.