For more than three decades, writer Richard Snodgrass has been fleshing out the world of his fictional town of Furnass, Pennsylvania. Over the course of eight Furnass books, Snodgrass has used the setting to explore subjects like the Vietnam War, 20th-century urban decay and development, and the regional history of Western Pennsylvania, where he grew up and currently lives. His latest release, A Book of Days, takes readers all the way back to the French and Indian War, creating an origin tale for his invented community and exploring how stories and perspectives shift over the course of generations.

“One thing you’re aware of when you live in the Pittsburgh area is the history of the place,” Snodgrass says. As a kid, he was drawn to Pontiac’s Rebellion in 1763 and various other clashes between British forces and Native American tribes of the time. Snodgrass particularly loved tales of the Black Watch, a wild and ferocious Scottish regiment brought to Pennsylvania to quell threats from the Natives. 

In talking about the Black Watch, Snodgrass has plenty of rich anecdotes at his fingertips, such as the image of Natives left bewildered by the mournful, foreign sounds of a bagpipe. (They decided the Black Watch must be beings from another planet!” Snodgrass says.) So for him, it was only natural that his fictional town be founded as an outpost for these fascinating, kilt-wearing warriors. He had already started to reference that idea in his short story collection Holding On, but with A Book of Days, Snodgrass plunges readers directly into the perspective of Black Watch soldier Thomas Keating, building the novel around Keating’s journal.

Kirkus Reviews calls A Book of Days “a mesmerizing soldier’s tale, grippingly dramatic” for its riveting, first-person narrative. Writing in the voice of an 18th-century Scotsman, Snodgrass explains how Keating comes to America and finds Elizabeth Cawley, a beguiling but volatile character who has been taken in by the Natives and taught their ways, leaving her lost between the worlds of the tribes and the settlers. Keating falls in love with Cawley as the two navigate a treacherous path upriver, the portrayal for which Snodgrass drew inspiration from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,and especially from Francis Ford Coppola’s modern film adaptation, Apocalypse Now.

Snodgrass says that writing Days was a truly magical experience, as Cawley’s shocking actions and choices began to surprise both his fictional narrator and himself. “I was hurrying to start writing every day, to find out what she was going to do next,” Snodgrass says. “You know you’re on to something when your characters are standing up and saying, ‘No, I’m not doing that. I’m doing this.’ ” 

In addition to modern influences, Snodgrass also infused Keating’s journal with the ideas of Scottish philosopher David Hume, who questioned how people could know anything of reality outside of themselves and their own experiences. Keating references Hume directly in the novel, and Snodgrass used his analysis to build Keating’s inner dialogue as he considers the small part of the vast and dangerous New World he has come to: 

I stand once again at a musket port. Look out at my rectangle on the world. My rectangle of the world. Hume says all we can know of the world are our impressions of it….And yet the problem….What exists beyond the five walls of this blockhouse? What is out there? Who? I can’t know beyond this rectangle imposed upon the world. 

“How do we know the world is real? I was fascinated that, all the way back in the time of Hume, he was interested in dealing with…how we sense the world,” Snodgrass says. To him, the 18th-century philosopher’s writings still feel relevant and modern, reminding Snodgrass of questions posed by more recent and psychedelic writers like Carlos Castaneda (just one of the authors that Snodgrass loved during his “hippie days” while studying at Berkeley and living in San Francisco).

Those more far-out ideas also come into play in A Book of Days’ intriguing, Russian doll–like structure. At the core is Keating’s journal, which is then framed by a story nearly 20 years later in which a mysterious figure reads the journal to Cawley’s daughter, which, in turn, is framed by the story of two children in the early 1800s for whom the journal becomes key in their first confusing experiences with sex and love.

Snodgrass says that he has always been interested in counterpoint and fugue, finding them to be exciting story structures. So he loved weaving the different voices in and out of each other for Days. “This is the best book of mine as a work of art….It has so many bloody layers!” Snodgrass says. “[The characters] carry with them all their history and the history that has come before them. And it creates realities on top of realities on top of realities.”

Even a glance at Snodgrass’ website shows his clear dedication to making the reality of Furnass, Pennsylvania, feel whole: With maps, articles, and historical references, Snodgrass has built a fictional town that readers can get lost in. His prose’s lush descriptions of the local landscape also speak to his other talent as an accomplished photographer with an eye for setting scenes and helping readers to visualize Furnass, even across centuries. 

Philosophical structures and detailed backgrounds aside, though, A Book of Days still delivers exciting battles, twists, and suspense. That’s because whether he’s taking photos, researching history, or pondering the nature of reality, Snodgrass is always focused on delivering a great story. “I’ve realized in my old age that the main thing I am is a storyteller,” Snodgrass says. “Story is just everything to me.”

Rhett Morgan is a writer and translator based in Paris.