Pieces of the narrative would come to him during the long drive, and he'd make notes in a small notebook his wife bought for the purpose. When they pulled into the gravel driveway beside their country place, he would scurry into the house to flesh out what had been brewing in his mind.
"I couldn't physically write during the drive, but I would sit in the passenger's seat and think and make notes, and when we got here I'd literally rush inside and write everything down. I would have about 15 or 20 pages in my head," Mr. Galloway said last weekend during an interview in the couple's well-ordered living room in Cornwall.
The result of that frenzied technique is a sharp and well-constructed drama that weaves mystery and riddles into a teenage love story set in a small river town. Not exactly a mystery novel, and not exactly a teen drama, it draws elements from both genres, while interlacing cryptic clues, and references to short-wave radio signals and popular culture. The ending leaves a lot of threads dangling, including the main one-what happened to the object of the narrator's affection, a bookish Goth girl named Anna Cayne.
Mr. Galloway leaves many clues throughout the novel, including premonitions of the book's strange end, hinted at by Anna Cayne, who becomes the object of her own obsession with mystery and death-one of her habits is writing pre-emptive obituaries for scores of the town's inhabitants-when she disappears about halfway through the book, leaving her dress beside a hole in the ice of the town's river. She is impresario and participant in the game, and later she becomes the focus of the game's mystery.
"It's almost more fun not knowing," Anna says at one point in the novel. "If you knew what it all meant, then it might not be as interesting or compelling. That's probably half the fun, not knowing. Sometimes there's more fun in the mystery of things than anything else."
The questions the novel leaves unanswered are undoubtedly part of its design, and the intention of the lack of resolution is made clear within the narrative by Anna and the novel's other characters. But the natural desire of readers to seek a tangible outcome, or at least follow the clues to reach a credible hypothesis, is satisfied outside of the book. Though it is rare for novelists to provide extra-literary references and information, Mr. Galloway does so, and in a novel way.
He set up a Web site, www.assimpleassnow.com, where readers can get information on subjects referenced in the book and learn more about the characters' interests. In a section called "Anna's Room," visitors can learn more about H.P. Lovecraft, Arshile Gorky, Nick Drake and Harry Houdini, to name a few objects of Anna's voracious cultural appetite. If it doesn't solve the mystery, the Web site at least helps readers key in on Anna's cryptic and often terse references.
"A lot of people have responded to the Web site," Mr. Galloway said. "I get e-mails all the time about it. I think the ideal reader is interested in all aspects of the book. It isn't necessary, really, but it's a nice resource."
The Web presence associated with the book probably wouldn't have existed had it not been for Mr. Galloway's career in the Internet industry. During the week, he works in the marketing department of an Internet consulting company called Elevation based in New Jersey.
Writing, though, has always been part of Mr. Galloway's life. He has a bachelor's and a master's degree from the University of Iowa in English, and another master's in poetry from the same school's well-regarded writing program. For some time after college, Mr. Galloway, now 42, worked as a ghost writer in New York City. When he landed his current job in 1996, he continued to write on the side.
"I wrote poetry and short fiction," he said. "I had some stuff published, but it was just a passion of mine."
"As Simple As Snow" was Mr. Galloway's first foray into long-form fiction, and his writing method, while natural to him, was somewhat unconventional. Instead of planning everything out to the last detail before starting to write, as many writers do, he built the novel out of sequence and without knowing exactly how the characters and the narrative would develop. He let the world of the novel form in pieces, and as an exploration of language instead of as a preconceived whole. It was the most familiar way for Mr. Galloway, reminiscent as it was of the way he has written poetry and short stories.
"I had never tried to write a novel, and so I had nothing to guide me," he said. "I tended to work in a nonlinear fashion, writing a few pages here and there, some scenes near the end, then others from the beginning, and then lumping it all together. I was kind of surprised the way it came out. It built upon itself."
He wrote the book in 2001 and 2002, and had it published-after some intensive proofreading-with the help of an agent. So far, reviews have been very positive. Publishers Weekly put the book in its "Top of the Heap" section. It also got a mention in Interview magazine.
As "As Simple As Snow," sells briskly, Mr. Galloway is in the middle stages of an as-yet-unnamed second novel. It won't be a sequel to his first, and its main characters won't be teenagers. He's using the same writing method, he said, and much of it will likely form in his mind, like last time, during the drive from New Jersey to the house in Cornwall that Mr. Galloway and his wife bought to be closer to friends in the area, and away from the intensely busy life of the city.
"I'm working on a second novel," he said. "So far, it isn't coming as quickly as the first."
Mr. Galloway is scheduled to sign copies of "As Simple As Snow" tomorrow from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at the Hickory Stick Bookshop in Washington Depot. Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, a division of Penguin Group, the novel has a cover price of $23.95.