There are many minor characters lurking in the background of this text, but only one narrator-protagonist. The fact that they are not visible in the body of this book should not be mistaken for insignificance. On the contrary, I could not have completed it without their help. I won’t elaborate each character into an entire novel, but I hope each of you knows how grateful I am for your help. My first thanks are owed to Mollie Godfrey for providing the conversation that sparked this project and for her challenging and thoughtful responses to my work for a long time afterward. The most major minor characters of this project, those whose efforts appear most prominently in this text yet remain largely hidden, are my graduate advisors Deborah Nelson, Kenneth Warren, and Sandra Macpherson, who spent countless hours reading drafts, discussing the project on the phone and in person, and constantly pushing me to refine my thinking. Thank you, Debbie, for challenging me to take genre fiction seriously and for refusing to apologize for the fact that it is genre fiction. Ken, thanks for helping me put pressure on the political claims of minor-character elaborations and for making me figure out social formalism in Colloquium. And thank you, Sandra, for helping me see the centrality of minor characters to the history of the novel, for provoking me to a more nuanced understanding of the politics of form, and, most of all, for the constant generosity and confidence you have extended to me. The project’s origins also owe much to a number of other mentors at the University of Chicago with whom I began discussing a set of issues surrounding point of view, sympathy, rewritings of canonical texts, and the workings of the culture industry and around which this project coalesced: Jim Chandler, Bill Veeder, and Miriam Hansen. Conversations with other colleagues at Chicago were indispensable. Thanks to Robin Valenza, Mark Hansen, Leela Gandhi, Jackie Goldsby, Elizabeth Chandler, Benjamin Blattberg, Bobby Baird, Amy Gentry, Nathan Wolff, Moacir de Sa Pereira, Josh Kotin, Lubna Najar, Tom Perrin, and the members of the American Cultures Workshop. Thanks also to the Caribbean English Teachers Association, the CUNY Graduate Center, and James Madison University for allowing me to present parts of this work in progress.
I have had the great good fortune of finding a set of colleagues of the University of Utah who have shared with me their rare combination of incisive critical thought and incredibly warm generosity. Many of them have read parts of this work with great care, and all have helped support me in the writing of it and in the adjustment to a new job and home. They have motivated and inspired me with the example of their work and the desire to remain in their company. Immense thanks go to Scott Black, Kate Coles, Al Duncan, Howard Horwitz, Lauren Jarvis, Andrew Franta, Anne Jamison, Stacey Margolis, Michael Mejia, Matt Potolsky, Angela Smith, Kathryn Stockton, Barry Weller, and Michelle Wolfe.
I also send my gratitude to Rita Felski and the editors at New Literary History, as well as the readers and editors at Contemporary Literature, who gave great suggestions that helped sharpen portions of this book. Thanks to the Literature Now editors, Matthew Hart, David James, and Rebecca Walkowitz, and to Philip Leventhal and the editors and readers at Columbia University Press.
To my family I owe debts, material and intangible, that cannot be conveyed here. Thank you, Linda Rosen, Jon Rosen, Ben Rosen, and Christine Maiello for bearing with my moods, keeping me going, and continuing to support me and love me over the long haul.