'This chapter aims to reconstruct the various economic and symbolic rewards of publishing Carey’s first collection of short stories, The Fat Man in History (1974). It offers a lateral examination of two interrelated aspects of Carey’s early fiction. It captures a continuum of Australian and transnational practices of literary distinction and advancement governing the success of the University of Queensland Press (UQP) and The Fat Man. These phenomena include the dominance of postmodern critique, governmental patronage of the Australian short story, and the termination of the Traditional Market Agreement. I explore the structural homologies between Carey’s position-takings in the literary field and the ways in which his characters engage with systems of cultural production and consumption. I then examine the evolution of Carey’s literary capital as his medium of publication shifts from literary magazines to UQP books and then onto prestigious international publishers such as Faber and Faber.' (Publication abstract)