Abstract: Starting in the early 1970s, in sociology and allied disciplines the studies of cultural production and reception began to split apart. Likewise, while applications of field theory to cultural production and reception have generated no shortage insights about the internal orders within fields, for the most part empirical analyses have stopped short at the relationships between fields. What are the consequences of both of these of arrangements? Through following a novel in real-time all the way from its authoring, into its publishing and selling, and then to the reading of it in 21 book groups, this talk reveals how decisions are made, inequalities are reproduced, and novels are built to travel in the creation, production, and consumption of culture.