Famously, the book took fifteen years to reach completion; the idea came to Chopper in 1995, a first draft being completed in 1997. Although he showed the manuscript to a few friends, he did not contact publishers because he feared it did not do justice to the original texts which inspired him. The work thus languished for several years, Chopper making only minor adjustments in his spare time, until a wealthy benefactor was given the manuscript and saw its potential. They agreed to pay Chopper a salary to work fulltime on it for three years, and in 2010 the almost completely rewritten novel was published.