India, May 2 -- The book is divided into three parts - Outside, Inside, and After, mimicking the process of moviemaking: a movie's inception, its production and afterlife. Was that intentional?

Putting lots of references to moviemaking, including structural ones, was deliberate. It's something that comes natural to you if you have a main character like Pabst, who was a great storyteller in his own right.

As a novelist, I'm interested in the shape the story you're telling is taking. So, to tell the story of a filmmaker from the 1920s, the German silent-movie era, should not only have the structural but also psychological influences. For example, when Pabst finds himself in tight, dense, and dangerous scenes, he imagines himself shooting ...