In an era of quick-hit technology, John Griesemer’s second novel, “Signal & Noise,” an international best seller, is a slow read. And that’s not such a bad thing. In fact, it’s downright Victorian.

The book, which is set in the mid-19th century, draws on the rich technological developments of the era, particularly the laying of the first trans-Atlantic cable, for a tale of interconnectedness that stretches across the ocean but also between the hearts of its main characters and even into the supernatural realm.

While long journeys between America and points in Europe give the book much of its mystique, part of the story is set on the coast of southern Maine, just north of Portland in a fictional family house with a view of Casco Bay. Maine became a setting, said Griesemer, because of his fondness for the area.

“When I was a kid, I went to camp in Bridgton, but my more recent memories of Maine are of the winters there. That was evocative to me – the dark blue of the water, the deep green of the trees and the white. That all rang in my head as the spirit of Maine,” said Griesemer, who will read from his work tomorrow at the Camden Public Library.

Before becoming a novelist, Griesemer, a native of New Jersey, worked as an actor, performing primarily in New York. He also has fond memories, he said, of doing shows at Portland Stage Company. During a run of “The Glass Menagerie,” he and his then-girlfriend Faith Catlin decided to get married. “We went from playing brother and sister to becoming husband and wife,” he said. In 1995, he worked on a TV adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Langoliers” and spent two weeks working on the set at Bangor International Airport and traveling to nearby attractions including Bar Harbor and Mount Katahdin.

After the success of his debut book, “No One Thinks of Greenland,” as well as publications in literary magazines such as Three Penny Review and The Gettysburg Review, Griesemer, who has lived in Lyme, N.H. for more than a dozen years, took up writing full time. He is currently working on a collection of short stories and a third novel, this time about acting.

When Picador released “Signal & Noise” last year, the epic tale was greeted with comparisons to Charles Dickens and Don DeLillo. While DeLillo, Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon were on Griesemer’s personal reading list when he was a student at Pennsylvania’s Dickinson College where he studied English, it was Dickens who was his touchstone while writing “Signal & Noise.”

“I decided I would use the method acting technique and read what my characters would read from that era,” said the writer, who was born in 1947. “I decided to read all of Dickens’ books and in order. It gave me background. He epitomized that era of amazing energy. He was a literary spirit to follow.”

If Griesemer’s language sometimes feels antique – a quality that has elicited critical response from reviewers – it is a reflection of his inundation in the styles, habits and lilt of the atmosphere in which his book is set. The plot, however, reads with more of a modern sensibility, replete with sex, drugs, corporate financing, dysfunctional families and complicated emotions.

Still, the book has often been labeled a historical novel, as least as much for its imaginative rendering of the scientific advances as for its Civil War references. Additionally, it features cameo appearances by real figures such as Karl Marx, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln and even a walk-on by Dickens. And the “Big Stink” of London’s sewage system wafts through the background.

But Griesemer is no history buff, he said. He was drawn to the dynamics of the mid-19 century, its flaws and its tremendous push toward modernity. It was a “supercharged time of technology, knowledge and intellect,” he said, “but without the irony.”

John Griesemer will read from “Signal & Noise” 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 1, at Camden Public Library, and noon Wednesday, June 2, at Portland Public Library.