[2] Upon starting the novel in 2010,[3] she intended to have only one protagonist, but Corthron "realized [she] also wanted to know the story behind the other key person involved in the event ... and at last it became a book about brothers.

"[2] Corthron, then known for her work as a playwright, said before the novel was published "[the idea] was just so huge I felt that this just couldn't fit into [a play,] a two-hour experience.

[2][5] The length of The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter caused several publishers to pass on the novel or suggest that it either receive major cuts or be broken into a trilogy; Corthron persisted until Seven Stories Press finally accepted the manuscript[2] in September 2014.

[6][7] Publishers Weekly hailed the novel as echoing "the social conscience of Steinbeck, the epic sweep of Ferber, [and] the narrative quirks of Dos Passos.

"[8] Leonard Pitts, reviewing for The New York Times, took issue with the length: "There is significant flab on these bones, sins of writerly self-indulgence and authorial indiscipline.

"[7] Naomi Wallace was quoted "[The novel] is the most important piece of writing about twentieth-century America since James Baldwin's Another Country.