Patrick deWitt is receding. Not visibly. He looks well, in fact: relaxed and rested. But he’s withdrawing, disengaging. It's very much on purpose. “More and more I find myself turning away from everything relating to contemporary society,” he says. “I don’t know how healthy it is, but I am creating a very private bubble that I live in.”

By the look of him, it’s pretty healthy. DeWitt, 40, is entirely angles. A rectangular face, handsome and bespectacled, perched atop his long, thin frame; like someone took Peter Fonda and stretched him, but not detrimentally.

We're sitting in the Ace Hotel in Shoreditch, London, where the restaurant is empty and the music, currently Eurythmics, is loud. He is measured, his speech tempered and thoughtful, as soft now as it was during the reading he gave in Soho last night.

We're talking about culture, and how he came to separate from it – less a divorce than a conscious uncoupling, for reasons of his own sanity. “It was during the writing of this book,” he explains, “that I recognised the internet was actually fucking me up.”

Not that he has anything against the internet. He likes it too much. It's a problem. “I always look at the stupidest shit. The most frivolous. And I really love it,” he laughs. “It’s like eating candy. And I don’t have the self control to turn away from it.

“Television I don’t have, for the exact same reason. I love television. Having one here in the hotel room, it’s on the whole time. I’m actively seeking out the stupidest, lowest-common-denominator shows I can find. And I love them, you know?”

I do know. I nod accordingly.

“I can’t be trusted with these devices, so I’m better off without them. I just stay away as much as I can.”

He looks at my iPhone. Thankfully, he isn’t one to speak in absolutes.

“I know a lot of people who use the internet really wisely. It enriches their lives in some way,” he says. “That’s just not how it works out for me. I have an impulse to wallow in bullshit. It’s a real perversion of mine. It’s easier to take myself out of the game.”

His speech is always considered, and he always offers caveats. You get the impression he’s spent a lot of time thinking of his answers in advance. You also get the impression that he worries, mostly because he tells you this, explicitly, several times.

“Travelling around the last couple of weeks, I’ve been watching television, seeing the things that are happening in the world, it’s not…it doesn’t make me feel good. If I open the door and look, it’s like 'ah, fuck', and I close the door again.”

Pause. Caveat.

“I’m always quick to point out that this is just how I choose to live; I wouldn’t recommend it. And thank god that more people aren’t feeling the way I’m feeling.”

Judging by his new novel, his lifestyle is serving him, and his readers, just fine.