It's not a simultaneous art, but one of transition and sequence. You can give the effect of simultaneity, but it's only created by illusion. A novel also takes time to read, so it involves much persuasion. You must persuade the reader to start reading - and continue reading. You have to persuade her not to put the book down on page 1 or page 100, or page 200, or page 700 - not to skip.
Fiction is an art of constant persuasion.
The use of suspense and one of the uses of identification with a protagonist is to make the reader go on reading and turning pages. My novels feel very different to me, each a small world. A novel is something I inhabit for two or three years, like a marriage or a house. It owns me and I live inside it. When I'm writing a novel it preoccupies me and stains my life with its particular emotional coloration.