In the late 1930s, after moving to Chicago, Goodman reconsidered his approach to fiction and wrote a dozen works of prose in a style he termed "cubist", in which he abstracted its formal/literary elements as alienated from mere character relations. Of these stories, "A Ceremonial", received the most critical attention, but Klaus Mann saw serenity where Goodman had intended an alienated tone. Goodman received fair recognition within New York literary circles into 1940 as he published in multiple magazines, but many opportunities soon fell through, particularly as Goodman made enemies with his aggressive World War II pacifism. Goodman's Japanese Noh plays, "Stop-Light", released a week after the attack on Pearl Harbor. "The Grand Piano", his antiwar novel, fell flat against the Philippines campaign. After publishing little in 1943 and being fired for seducing his students, Goodman was becoming notorious.