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This book follows the creation, production, and reception of Cornelia Nixon's 2009 historical fiction, Jarrettsville, from start to finish. Jarrettsville tells the story of one of Nixon's ancestors, Martha Jane Cairnes, who shot and killed her newborn baby's father, Nicholas McComas, following the Civil War, just south of the Mason-Dixon line in Jarrettsville, Maryland. Jarrettsville would go on to be many different things for different people: authors, publishers, reviewers, readers. The book explores Jarrettsville's transformation as it made its journey from the three interdependent fields of creation, production, and reception. This introduction discusses the disjunction between the study of production and study of reception in sociology; the three interdependent fields of creation, production, and reception; and how to tell a typical publishing story like Jarrettsville.

This chapter examines how Jarrettsville came to be, and how even its title was eventually derived, by tracing the social life of artistic creation within it. Between 1998 and 2004, Cornelia Nixon was working on a novel titled Martha's Version, the story of Jarrettsville based entirely from Martha Jane Cairnes's first-person perspective. Nixon was sixteen years old on a cross-country flight when her mother first told her the family story that would become her inspiration for writing Jarrettsville. The chapter first narrates the true events that Nixon fictionalized in Jarrettsville before discussing her education, writing style, and literary influences; her family and personal life as raw materials for the novel; and the research process for Jarrettsville. It also considers how the practice of writing is influenced by things such as background experiences and training, and the field of creation by social interactions. Finally, it explains how Jarrettsville came to be called Jarrettsville.

This chapter examines how Cornelia Nixon turned a $6,000 advance for Jarrettsville into a stable and middle-class income. Nixon's writing ritual is a story not only about her creative process, but also about money. She lives in a handsome condo in Berkeley Hills, California. She could have written Jarrettsville in the comfort of her home or office, but chose to write at the Starbucks coffee shop in Berkeley for two hours—and sometimes four—a day. To make sense of Nixon's creative process, the chapter considers two small economic transactions and one broader economic reality: paying for street parking near Starbucks, buying tea, and affording to have good days and bad days at the coffee shop. Given her authorial career and her finances at the time, the chapter asks how Nixon managed to afford her parking, her tea, and, most importantly, her condo, and how she afforded to write at all.

This chapter examines why Counterpoint Press eventually accepted the manuscript for Jarrettsville after initially rejecting it. As a precondition for representing Cornelia Nixon, Wendy Weil asked her to write and send one chapter per month of the novel that would eventually become Jarrettsville. Weil thought she could place Nixon's novel Angels Go Naked, but Jarrettsville was the novel she wanted to represent. As Nixon worked on Martha's Version, Weil worked on placing Angels Go Naked until it was released by Counterpoint on April 1, 2000. Martha's Version was sent to five editors in 2002, and then reworked, before being sent out to another sixteen editors from 2003 to 2005. Those sixteen editors all also rejected Martha's Version. The chapter first considers the interdependencies of literary agents and editors and how editors make and legitimize decisions before discussing why Jarrettsville was rejected and later accepted by Counterpoint.

This chapter examines Counterpoint Press editor Adam Krefman's proposal for changing Jarrettsville by focusing on the field of production and how different book publishers fit and operate within it. Krefman had been full of praise for Jarrettsville, but he wondered what kind of novel it was. While Cornelia Nixon had developed a reputation as an author of literary fiction, Jarrettsville's plot makes it more the stuff of popular fiction. The chapter first considers how publishing houses need to strike a balance between artistic and commercial books before discussing the advantages of large publishers versus independent publishers. It then analyzes how Krefman and Counterpoint rearranged Jarrettsville into a nonlinear narrative that begins in medias res in order to use the novel's plot-driven facets to its literary advantage. In particular, it looks at Krefman's suggestion of moving part of the end of Jarrettsville to the beginning.

This chapter examines how a one-sentence email from Kim Wylie, the VP of sales at Publishers Group West, almost led to a doubling of Counterpoint Press's print run for Jarrettsville. Cornelia Nixon enacted Adam Krefman's suggestion to move part of the end of Jarrettsville to the beginning. After this major structural change, only smaller developmental edits and copyediting had to be addressed. The chapter first considers the copyediting and blurbs done for Jarrettsville, as well as the editors' enthusiasm for the novel and Counterpoint's marketing campaign, before discussing how Wylie's email (which read: “About halfway through Jarrettsville, and really enjoying it so far”) helped raise Jarrettsville's profile, increasing the print run for the novel by 1,000 copies while also setting the wheels in motion for larger changes.

This chapter examines Counterpoint Press's marketing for Jarrettsville, focusing on how it increased awareness for Cornelia Nixon's novel at BookExpo America (BEA). It first provides an overview of BEA, a trade conference held in May or early June each year for publishers to coordinate with booksellers, before discussing how novels are transitioned from production to reception, and how the first sale of a novel must be successful in order to create the opportunity for success in the second sale. It then shows how Counterpoint navigated Jarrettsville from the field of production to the field of reception through relationships between publicity directors and reviewers/review outlets, positive online chatter from BEA, the enthusiasm of the field representatives, and the strong buy-in from retailers. The chapter also considers how Jarrettsville generated strong interest from readers in the South and Mid-Atlantic.

This chapter examines how readers read their lives into Jarrettsville as the novel transitioned from the field of production to the field of reception. To read one's life into a novel means to make sense of it using the tools that one possesses. For different readers the same novel can effectively be different novels. Some readers, for example, loved Jarrettsville whereas others did not. For some, it was about love and loss; for others, it was about fear and violence. The chapter first analyzes Cornelia Nixon's intentions for Jarrettsville before discussing readers' interpretations of the novel. In particular, it explores how the character of Richard Cairnes was seen by book groups. It shows that Southern book groups most often held the complex interpretation of both holding Richard responsible for the outcome of the story while also being sympathetic to him as a character.

This chapter examines how readers read Jarrettsville into their lives. To read a novel into one's life is to treat the novel as the raw materials through which one turns over, reconsiders, or shares with others one's own experiences. While some book groups found Jarrettsville to be neither a “good book” nor a “good book group book,” other groups viewed Cornelia Nixon's work as good in both ways, or not a great read but still a good book to make discussion with. The chapter considers how Jarrettsville became a means for discussing two topics: inquisitive and oftentimes frank talk of personal romantic relationships, and distressing observations of—and encounters with—structural racism. It also explores how readers connected the plot points and events depicted in Jarrettsville to a wide range of current events and topics, including post-Apartheid South Africa, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and the passage of Proposition 8 in California.

This book has shown how authors, publishers, and readers all operate in different fields, rather than occupy a single “literary field.” Through her author tour and occasional fan mail, Cornelia Nixon gained a window into the field of reception. For Counterpoint Press, the decision to publish Jarrettsville had not been a mistake, but it had not earned enough to cover many losses on what would be inevitable future mistakes. For some of the readers of Jarrettsville, the book became an occasional reference point in their future reading and socializing. This conclusion reconsiders the studies of creation, production, and reception and examines the exogenous forces of change that explain the evolution of these three interdependent fields. In particular, it discusses the path from Anne Rice's 1976 Interview with the Vampire to E. L. James's 2011 Fifty Shades of Grey. Finally, it asks whether books are special objects; for example, as status symbols.