Olivia Laing

speaker

938 appearances 3 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 10 Aug

Olivia Laing’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

Appearances

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London Review Bookshop Podcast · Lauren J. Joseph & Olivia Laing: Lean Cat, Savage Cat · 22 Jun 2026 podcast

You work out what's going on.

So I kind of wanted to ask a technical question of how did you do that?

How did you write this book that you can read two ways?

It really is like a sort of fabric that looks one way and then looks the other way.

And I was really, I found myself so impressed in the second read.

Because you're giving these little sly lines that you only really pick up on on the second go.

And then there's another sort of double pair who are deeply significant to the narrative and especially to Charlie, but hanging around on the periphery, people see them, people glimpse them.

Romy Haag and David Bowie.

And then what about Bowie?

Because they're kind of stand-in doubles for Charlie and Alexandra, right?

They want to enter these beings, but they're failing all the time to enter these fantasy lives.

But also the Bowie encounters are incredibly down-to-earth.

Like, he's in...

Is it Harrods or is it Fortnum's?

Pie.

He's buying a pie.

And then later he's on the millennial wheel.

So he's like, he's actually very grounded in his appearances as he takes on his angelic new form.

Unlike Alexander, who really is very rarely grounded.

And I don't think eats in the entire book.

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