Jon Courtenay Grimwood

11. One of my favourites is Stamping Butterflies. It has great characters and a complex, rich story which I found, after the finishing the book, completely clear. But when I talked to other people who had read it, I got many blank stares. I wondered, if I had misunderstood something but no, I don't think so. What kind of feedback did you get from the book? Did people ask a lot about the events in the book or just begged you for a new Ashraf Bey novel.

Stamping Butterflies divides readers. Some adore it and others hate it and a few resent having to work a little to understand what is going on. The critics, on the other hand, were universally kind. There are three main timelines and there are timelines within those timelines. The publishers, helpfully, added motifs at the top of each chapter to tell people where they are. (Not that it’s actually that hard!)

Obviously enough, the book makes perfect sense to me. And the idea of two people separated across time thinking they’re dreaming the other into existence seems relatively simple to grasp. It was tough to write, because I wanted to write about a version of Guantanamo Bay, while also writing about a far future Chinese emperor waiting to be assassinated, and generation ships in space. I cried at the end!

[Q. And were you satisfied with the book when you finally finished it? I mean, was finishing SB different from the other books.]

It was the hardest book to hold in my head because there was so much going on and there were layers under layers and what happened in the future influenced the past as much as what happened in the past influenced the future. I’ve just written a crime novel set in heaven, hell and Mexico City and that’s as complex. And I feel fairly wrung out at the moment, much as I did after finishing Stamping Butterflies.

Am I happy with it? I’m never happy with a book but I don’t think any novelist is. The hardest thing of all is giving the latest book up