Nicola Mason: Because the book involves time travel, there are two Aarons and two Violets (what one reviewer calls a ménage à quatre). As readers, we are privy to the thoughts of both Violets—the impassioned musician in 1988 and the frazzled mother of two in 2006....

Nicola Mason: In your essay “A Phenomenology of Fiction,” you describe how modern philosophy and quantum physics undergird not just your characters’ perceptions but your writing methodology as well. I was particularly struck by Christopher Tilley’s treatment of...

Nicola Mason: In Keeping Time, Aaron is an archaeologist—and American expat in Scotland—and his knowledge of Neolithic sites and rituals derives in large part from your script-writing research for Half Life, an environmental art event (taking place across a hundred...