Geographies of Creation and Promotion

After six chapters of close reading and textual analysis concentrating on the intratextual and the intertextual, here in the next two chapters, the discussion turns to a consideration of two extratextual aspects of the literary geography text event: in this chapter, production and promotion and, in the following chapter, reception. However, while this chapter moves beyond text-centered analysis to consider geographies of the creation and promotion of The Great World, the expansion of focus is by no means intended to imply that knowledge of the conditions of production is indispensable (or even necessarily useful) for the creation of a valid reading of the text. The goal here is not to determine what the author may or may not have intended or to suggest that knowledge of the author’s historical geography, biography, or location is a necessary prerequisite for serious reading and interpretation. Rather, because the point of the chapter is to acknowledge that geographies of production and promotion are significant components of literary geography, the emphasis here continues to be on McCann’s novel (and McCann’s professional persona) as a model through which to explore literary geography, not on literary geography as a method of literary interpretation.