When asked about the writing of World's Fair which he completed in less than a year, Doctorow admits being "set up" for it by his preceding book, Lives of the Poets (1984). The subtitle for that book is Six Stories and a Novella, and at least one of the stories can be read as a prologue to World's Fair. The first story "The Writer in the Family" introduces the boy who will become a writer, the apartment in the Bronx, the Jewish family, the other relatives, and several details that will be developed into the full novel published a year later.