"The Middle Man" was first published in 1988 as part of Mukherjee's second collection of short fiction, The Middle Man and Other Stories, which won the 1988 National Book Critics Circle Award for best fiction. The Middleman was, according to Fakrul Alam, "both a commercial and a critical success." "The Middleman" has also been anthologized in the 1997 collection High Infidelity: 24 Great Stories About Adultery by Some of Our Best Contemporary Authors (1997), edited by John McNally.

A central theme that runs through all of Mukherjee's fiction is that of the immigrant experience in America. Critics noted that this collection, comprised of stories written mostly after her move to America and published shortly after she became a U.S. citizen, is more optimistic in its view of the immigrant experience. In addition, Mukherjee maintains that immigrants from Third World cultures are not only changed by living in America, but also...