In The Glass Kingdom, Lawrence Osborne turns his gaze on the expat elite of Bangkok. Centered on a group of wealthy foreigners drifting between embassies, bars, and private compounds, the novel explores what happens when insulation from consequence becomes a way of life—and when that insulation begins to crack.
Reviews have noted Osborne’s cold precision and moral clarity: Bangkok is portrayed not as exotic spectacle, but as a hyper-capitalist mirror reflecting Western fantasies of escape and control. The city sharpens every imbalance—between locals and outsiders, desire and responsibility, freedom and harm. Read this if you want to understand Bangkok as a place where global privilege concentrates, corrodes, and occasionally implodes.
Sarah, a young American expatriate on the run, arrives in Bangkok with a suitcase full of stolen money. She hopes to find refuge in one of the once glamorous but now decaying luxury apartment buildings that dominate the Bangkok skyline. Sarah makes friends with the other residents of the glass kingdom, expats and Thais. At first the chaos, heat, and betrayal can be kept outside then it goes rapidly downhill. At the center of the book is Bangkok, the atmosphere and characters populating the city.
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