(CNN) -- Chuck Klosterman's seventh book and second novel, "The Visible Man" (Scribner), is out Tuesday.





Its story is told by an Austin, Texas, therapist named Victoria Vick and centers around one of her clients, Y___, a man whose name we never learn and who, more importantly, has an unusual talent. Thanks to a suit and some cream he helped develop, Y___ can basically render himself invisible to the untrained eye.





But more than simply a book about a guy with a special ability, "The Visible Man" is about how people act when they're not being watched, and the sketchy moral line that's crossed by the watcher. CNN spoke with Klosterman about the inspiration for the book, writing about and participating in the interview process, and how no one is going to relate to the two main characters in his new novel.





CNN: What was the inspiration for "The Visible Man"?





Chuck Klosterman: I think it was probably when I was writing the previous book, the essay collection (2009's "Eating the Dinosaur"). I had to reread H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" for an essay I was writing.





I was living in Germany at the time, teaching for the University of Leipzig, so I got it through Amazon Europe or whatever, and it was an edition of the book that was "The Time Machine" and "The Invisible Man." So I decided I would read "The Invisible Man" too, since I hadn't read it since fifth or sixth grade. It was a totally different book than I'd remembered (which is what happens when) you're an adult. The thing that was most interesting to me was that the invisible man was such a jerk. He was just this kind of egocentric, weird person.





Of course, as I thought it over, what type of personality would pursue something like invisibility? It would have to be someone who was both very smart and really sort of egocentric -- would lack the normal boundaries a person would have. At the same time, I was thinking a lot about the process of interviewing. Sort of the unreality of being interviewed. I started to wonder, if you really want to understand what someone's like, how would you do it? Interviewing or surveying or anything when a person is around other people is so impacted by the experience. So those two things together sort of ended up becoming this book.





CNN: You like to talk about interviewing while being interviewed. Having written this book, which includes a lot of interview-based conversation, was your position on interviewing altered?





Klosterman: No. The more you profile people and the more you try to learn things from people through asking them questions, the shortcoming and failures of this process become more and more present in your mind. I can't imagine that, as I grow older, I'm going to reverse my thinking and start believing the interviewing process is more valuable than I think now. It will probably just keep eroding.





But here's the trick, or, I guess, the paradox: Even though interviewing is this incredibly flawed process, it's still the best means we have for understanding people we don't know. It's completely imperfect, but still better than every other option.





CNN: Do you think your opinion of interviewing will erode to the point where you no longer interview people or get interviewed?





Klosterman: What else would I do? I mean, I'm a journalist. There's certainly a thinking, and I didn't see this as much when I worked in newspapers, but when I moved to New York and ended up being surrounded mostly by critics, I came to the realization that a lot of people sort of work under the impression that not only is interviewing not helpful, but that it's mostly detrimental.





That if you want to write about the band Wilco, it's a disadvantage to meet Jeff Tweedy, because that's going to warp your real perception of
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