Inspiration struck novelist Nickolas Butler while he did a puzzle in a Wisconsin bar

At the Tomahawk Room in Chippewa Falls, Wis., you can get a pizza, a locally brewed hard cider or, possibly, the idea for your next book.

A few years ago, novelist Nickolas Butler, who lives in a small town nearby, was nursing a beverage while finishing a Sudoku puzzle in the Tomahawk Room when this happened:

“I heard two older people — in their mid-60s, I guess, or late 60s — and the man said to the woman, ‘I still dream about you. I dream about kissing you. Can I kiss you?’” recalled Butler, 45, whose new novel is “A Forty Year Kiss.”

He was immediately rapt.

“That sort of poetry doesn’t really happen in bars a whole lot in my experience,” said Butler, whose previous books include “Shotgun Lovesongs” and “Godspeed.” “I thought they would exchange just a polite kiss, but it was a really long, passionate kiss. I started taking notes at that point. I had this feeling that something magical was happening.”

Perhaps it’s an occupational hazard but Butler immediately began thinking about possibilities. Had the couple been high school sweethearts? Had there been an affair and they couldn’t stop thinking about each other?

“I didn’t know,” said Butler. “But they were reconnecting, clearly, and this guy was putting his cards on the table in this beautiful and, I thought, vulnerable way.”

Something similar happens in “A Forty Year Kiss.” Wisconsinites Charlie and Vivian were married for four years but split up for a variety of reasons, including the alcoholism Charlie still battles. Forty years later, they meet in a bar and Charlie asks, “Can I give you a hug? Would that be OK?” to which Vivian replies, “Yes, I’d like that.” Soon, their relationship seems to be back on track.

Stumbling upon the scene between the strangers, who left the bar as Butler began imagining their universe, presented him with one dilemma. And solved another.

“My publisher wanted me to write another literary thriller, akin to ‘Godspeed.’ I know now how to tell that story but at the time I really didn’t. I just felt like, ‘Oh, [damn]. This is the story I have to tell,” said Butler. “That’s how my career has gone. I tend to take a new challenge every time.”

He also tends to listen when inspiration hits him over the head with a hard cider bottle.

“I just happened to be eavesdropping in on an important moment in somebody’s life and a door opened,” said Butler, whose past two novels sprang from stories people told him. “I wouldn’t say I’m actively out there eavesdropping or mining other people’s lives for book ideas. But one thing I tell young writers is that when people know you are a writer, what they recognize, whether they’re aware of it intellectually or not, is that you like a good story.”

“A Forty Year Kiss” is tricky to categorize, as are most of Butler’s books. For one thing, although there’s a romance, Butler pulls off a tricky balancing act in which we’re rooting for Charlie and Vivian but also not exactly sure that they should end up together (it makes sense that Butler lists both sunny Nora Ephron movies and the darker “Leaving Las Vegas” as influences).

Butler’s author page includes thrillers and adventures but his six books are connected, all the way back to when he was in the famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Assigned to write an “artist’s statement,” he realized love was his interest, whether that’s a full-on romance or platonic friendship between men.

“In all my books, love is the thread,” said Butler, who grew up in Eau Claire and lived in St. Paul for a couple of years before moving to rural Wisconsin a dozen years ago. “Sam Chang, who was my teacher in Iowa, said, ‘You should always write about love.’”

Nevertheless, there are surprises, both in terms of the kinds of books Butler writes and what happens in them. A party to a class-action lawsuit that opposes the use of published material to “teach” artificial intelligence (four Butler novels were fed into the AI maw), Butler is a Siri-avoiding, vinyl-record-playing, algorithm-ignoring fan of the mysteries of imagination and creativity.

“There are things that happen when I’m writing a novel that I cannot explain. When I was in my mid-twenties, learning to be a writer, I probably would have been skeptical of somebody saying that, but it happens in every book,” said Butler, a full-time writer unless you count time spent doing his two kids’ laundry, which he says is constant. “It’s those moments when I’m not in control and I don’t know what’s happening but it’s working — that’s really lovely.”

So is meeting readers. Butler’s already well into a sequel to “Shotgun Lovesongs” but he’s eager to go on the road and share “A Forty Year Kiss,” including at a Minneapolis appearance this week.

“I love finding out what people are reading, what they’re watching,” said Butler. “I live in the country, which is my choice, but I don’t bump into many people. When I get to go to a bookstore or a library, those are my people.”

A Forty Year Kiss

By: Nickolas Butler.

Publisher: Sourcebooks, 322 pages, $27.99.

Event: Noon, Feb. 8, Hook & Ladder Theater, 3010 Minnehaha Av. S., Mpls., $20-$25 (includes coupon for book discount), thehookmpls.com.