In 2001, Chabon reflected on the success of his first novel by saying that while "the upside was that I was published and I got a readership, ... downside ... was that, emotionally, this stuff started happening and I was still like, 'Wait a minute, is my thesis done yet?' It took me a few years to catch up." In 1991, he published "A Model World", a collection of short stories, many of which were previously published in "The New Yorker".