The Complex: A Novel

by Karan Mahajan

“An extraordinary gift to its lucky an enormously full and brilliantly structured novel whose characters come to feel as familiar—and as bottomlessly mysterious—as one's own family.”
—Karen Russell, author of National Book Award finalist The Antidote

“A testament to Mahajan’s genius. . . . Beautiful and unforgettable”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A brilliant, sweeping tour de force moving between the US and modern India, following the illicit liaisons, real estate dramas, political ambitions, and mortal betrayals of one prominent Delhi family — from the author of the National Book Award finalist The Association of Small Bombs

In a sprawling complex in Delhi, the sons and daughters of SP Chopra, one of India's political architects, live together vying for influence in a family shaped by the great man's legacy. By the late 1970s, his descendants are scrambling to define their own futures in a still-young nation on the brink of transformation.

Sachin Chopra leaves for America, with his bride Gita following not long after, as the newlyweds are eager to forge their own lives beyond the pressures of the family compound. Yet Delhi remains an inescapable force, one that keeps pulling them back, even as Gita is menaced by Sachin’s predatory uncle, Laxman. A man of restless ambition, Laxman ascends through the ranks of a rising Hindu nationalist movement, caught between his political aspirations and his personal transgressions. Meanwhile, Vibha, his sister, tries to keep the peace and the reputation of the family intact even as she wrestles with her own exile.

As India erupts in violence and long-buried secrets come to light, the embattled Chopras must reckon with the cost of power, the weight of tradition, and the shifting nature of love and allegiance. Equal parts brilliant family saga and piercing political drama, The Complex is a virtuosic novel of revenge and redemption, ambition and undoing, loyalty and love, by one of the most lauded voices in contemporary fiction.


* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF containing a family tree from the book.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, India, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Novels, Family Saga

Audible Audio

First published March 10, 2026

About the author

Karan Mahajan is the author of "The Association of Small Bombs," which was a finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award, and was named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by the New York Times Book Review. His debut novel "Family Planning" was a finalist for the International Dylan Thomas Prize. He has been selected as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists, and his writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The New York Review of Books, and other venues. He is an associate professor in Literary Arts at Brown University. His third novel, "The Complex," is forthcoming in March 2026.

Reviews

[emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

i have succession disease, which is when i can't hear that something is about a family vying for power without thinking about my favorite prestige television show.

i love a family saga, and this definitely is one. it follows the Chopras, a well-regarded Delhi family, all of whom live crowded in the dilapidated complex their dead patriarch built.

it subverts the things i appreciate most about the genre — its sense of hope, its reverberations through generations, the passage of time — taking place over one generation and following people whose lives are essentially ruined, but as it went on, i found it more interesting than frustrating.

bottom line: clear-eyed and pessimistic.

(thanks to the publisher for the arc)

[Karan · Rating 5 out of 5]

taking preemptive action LOL

[Ruben · Rating 4 out of 5]

A proper Indian family saga, in which the great-grandson of a famous politician tells the story of the decline of his once powerful family, all living together in The Complex.

It was hard for me not to compare this to the recent Pakistani saga 'This Is Where The Serpent Lives', which I thought was better written and enjoyed slightly more than this one.

The Complex appears mostly interested in the women of the family and their struggled to get out of the straightjacket that late 20th century Indian society puts them in - by moving abroad, by starting an affair. It focused a little bit too much on the affairs for my taste and I would have been interested to learn more about the religious and political contexts.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Put a multi-generational, large, extended family in one apartment complex in Delhi, and watch what happens. That is the story of this novel. It could also be titled Family Members Behaving Badly! There are multiple instances of greed, deception, jealousy, adultery and manipulation within the family. There are also many instances of love and loyalty. It’s a family. The setting in Delhi makes it even more entertaining, although one couple does start the novel in the US, which adds a good layer. There is a good bit of Indian politics (30 years post partition) added to the plot. This was also quite interesting. I somewhat feel as if I have read an extremely well written soap opera. I am also quite relieved, because even though my family definitely has its characters, deceptions and jealousies, we are absolutely not nearly as crazy as the family who lives in the complex!

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Goodreads and Viking for the review copy.

I remember the opening of Karan Mahajan’s first novel, The Association of Small Bombs, going off like one — a literal bomb. I was immediately pulled in.

His latest novel, The Complex, lives up to its title in a different way. Much is revealed in the first chapter (no spoilers), and it’s the kind of subject matter I often hope not to read about.

The “complex” refers to the apartment building at the center of the story, but like his first novel, it’s also about the complexities of families — long histories, grudges, ego, and the ways people hurt each other without fully understanding why. The family drama mirrors larger political tensions in India, especially around events like the Anti-Sikh riots and the Mandal Commission protests. Mahajan seems less interested in taking political sides and more interested in showing how tribalism and self-righteousness — whether in a country or a family — can cause damage that’s hard to undo.

I’ve seen comparisons to Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, but I’m not sure that’s quite right. It feels closer to the melodramatic family sagas of Jonathan Franzen or even Tom Wolfe. The language itself is fairly straightforward, but the shifting alliances, betrayals, and emotional undercurrents give it its edge.

Even though I didn’t enjoy it as much as The Association of Small Bombs, I still think it’s a strong novel and will find a wide audience. I could easily see this adapted into a Netflix series — and I would definitely watch that.

[James B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley and Viking for the ebook. An epic book that follows three related families in India’s recent past. All three families are in the shadow of their famous patriarch, SP Chopra and are constantly measuring their failures against his greatness, which leads to goals that can never be met. One man throws himself into business, but barely breaks even, another tries to bring the innovations he learned in America back home, but finds his country just isn’t quite set up for these things. A third, Laxman, seduces, or assaults, the women inside the family and becomes a political zealot. With financial pressure and with trying to hold so many secrets, it’s only a matter of time until violence follows.

[PreetiShelfie]

I pushed to about 30 percent and have decided to DNF. The family saga of a prominent Delhi family living in The Complex (and in the US) in the 70s, 80s and 90s amidst India’s changing political landscape sounded interesting. But ultimately I found it to be too Bollywood soap opera-ish and not to my enjoyment. If you are familiar at all with India, these kind of patriarchal and sexist families existing in a nationalistic landscape are not uncommon. So I think I was expecting a lot more depth perhaps from an award winning author. But Karan Mahajan is a new to me author and unfortunately his writing here just didn’t do it for me.

[Nicole Hoffman · Rating 1 out of 5]

The best part of this book was being finished with it and dropping it off in a Little Free Library.

[Adii (adiiturnsapage) · Rating 4 out of 5]

​If you love a juicy family drama that hooks you from page one, you need to pick up The Complex by Karan Mahajan. Moving dynamically between a crowded family compound in New Delhi and the suburbs of America, this gripping novel spans the late 1970s to the 1990s, capturing the messy, chaotic heart of a family on the brink of change.

​The story follows the Chopra family, who are all living in the shadow of their late patriarch’s massive political legacy. When newlyweds Sachin and Gita move to the US to build a new life, they think they've escaped the family pressure cooker. But Delhi has a way of pulling them back, especially when dark secrets, ruthless ambitions, and political rivalries begin to boil over.

​What makes this book so unforgettable is how real it feels. Mahajan’s writing is sharp, witty, and deeply atmospheric. He takes characters who could easily feel like typical aunts and uncles and gives them incredible moral and psychological depth. It is part intense political drama and part heartbreaking family saga, exploring how private family tensions can mirror a country's larger political shifts.

​It is a stunning, fast-paced ride about power, revenge, and what it truly costs to break free from tradition. If you’re looking for a brilliant page-turner that stays with you long after the final chapter, add this to your TBR list immediately!

Rated: 4/5

[Phyllis · Rating 3 out of 5]

My enjoyment of this novel decreased at a slow and steady pace from beginning to end. It is primarily historical fiction focused on the national politics of India from 1947 through the 1980s, wrapped in the soap opera-like shenanigans of the extended Chopra family.

I was surprised to read, in the author’s acknowledgments, that this novel was the result of a “posthumous collaboration“ through the author’s “creative revision“ of a rough draft manuscript found in the email account of Mohit Chopra, for whom the author was named “literary executor.“

[Hayden Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

to the PRH rep that pressed this book into my hands at FallCon: thank you. you were right.

[Kerry]

I was interested until it fell away from the main woman's POV and shifted into the POV of the pathetic, entitled men who take out their insecurities on women.

[Debabrata Mishra · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are books that tell stories, and then there are books that quietly dissect the systems that shape those stories. "The Complex" by Karan Mahajan belongs firmly to the latter category. It is a book less interested in comforting narratives than in exposing the uneasy machinery beneath modern life, the networks of power, privilege, ideology, and inheritance that determine how people live, love, compromise, and ultimately become who they are.

At first glance, the book appears to revolve around a housing colony in Delhi and the people connected to it. Yet the colony itself gradually transforms into something larger than a setting. It becomes a living metaphor for contemporary India, a space where aspirations collide with history, where private desires are inseparable from public realities, and where every wall seems to conceal both ambition and decay. The author constructs this world with extraordinary precision, creating a narrative that feels simultaneously intimate and expansive.

What makes this book so compelling is its refusal to offer easy moral certainties. The book is populated by individuals who are neither heroes nor villains but deeply flawed human beings struggling against their own contradictions. The author understands that people rarely act according to the ideals they profess. Instead, they move through life guided by fear, insecurity, self-interest, longing, and occasional flashes of genuine compassion.

The characters feel unsettlingly authentic because they are never simplified into symbols. They possess the messy unpredictability of real people. Their choices often frustrate the reader, but that frustration is precisely the point. The author is interested in exposing the gap between how people see themselves and how they actually behave when confronted with power, status, or survival. This psychological honesty gives the novel much of its emotional weight.

Beneath its family dramas and interpersonal tensions lies a deeper examination of political and social structures. He explores how ideology functions not merely as a set of beliefs but as a force that infiltrates everyday life. Politics in The Complex is not confined to elections, speeches, or public debates. It exists within families, friendships, neighborhoods, and personal relationships. It shapes aspirations, influences loyalties, and determines who gets to belong.
•••
This is where the book achieves some of its most powerful effects. Rather than presenting political realities through overt commentary, the author allows them to emerge organically through the lives of his characters. The result is a portrait of society that feels both nuanced and disturbingly recognizable. The reader begins to understand how large-scale social transformations are experienced not as abstract historical events but as intimate disruptions within individual lives.
•••
One of the book's most striking achievements is its treatment of privilege. He approaches privilege not as a simplistic moral failing but as a complicated inheritance, something that grants opportunity while simultaneously creating blindness. Many of the characters benefit from systems they scarcely recognize, and the novel repeatedly asks uncomfortable questions about complicity. What responsibilities accompany privilege? How much of a person's success genuinely belongs to them? Can one remain morally intact while benefiting from unjust structures?
•••
The author's prose is another significant strength. His writing is sharp, observant, and often devastatingly precise. He possesses a remarkable ability to capture emotional undercurrents without resorting to melodrama. A brief exchange, an awkward silence, or a seemingly insignificant gesture often reveals more about a character than pages of exposition could.

What lingers after finishing the book is not a particular plot twist or dramatic scene but a pervasive sense of unease. The book forces readers to examine the invisible systems that shape their own lives. It asks difficult questions about power, inheritance, morality, and belonging. More importantly, it refuses to provide reassuring answers.
•••
In an era when much contemporary fiction often prioritizes immediacy and accessibility, the book remains unapologetically demanding. It trusts readers to wrestle with complexity rather than escape from it. That trust is both its greatest strength and, for some, its greatest challenge.
•••
✍️ Strengths :

🔸Exceptionally layered exploration of family, politics, privilege, and social power.
🔸Complex, psychologically convincing characters who feel authentically human.
🔸Sharp, intelligent prose rich with observation and emotional nuance.
🔸Thought-provoking engagement with moral ambiguity and ideological conflict.
🔸A sophisticated portrayal of contemporary Indian society through intimate personal narratives.
🔸Rewards careful reading with lasting intellectual and emotional resonance.
•••
In conclusion, this is a book that understands an uncomfortable truth, societies do not unravel through grand catastrophes alone, they erode gradually through everyday compromises, inherited privileges, silent ambitions, and moral evasions. The author captures this reality with remarkable intelligence and restraint, crafting a work that is as psychologically incisive as it is socially observant.
This is not a book designed to entertain in a conventional sense. It is designed to unsettle, provoke, and illuminate. Its greatest achievement lies in its ability to transform a seemingly ordinary housing colony into a microcosm of a nation wrestling with questions of identity, power, and responsibility. Long after the story ends, its questions continue echoing in the reader's mind.

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first half (the writing style, the interesting story, the very short chapters). However, after shifting focus to be more on the perspective of the problematic man, it lost me in the second half. I also felt like it did a remarkably good job of helping me keep a million characters straight at the beginning, but eventually I got a little fatigued by that.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book! Karan will be a guest on my show this season - Check This Out!

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I read this via Whispersync and the audiobook was expertly narrated.

[Benjamin T. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bafflingly clumsy piece from a writer whose prior work is so taut. It's meandering, plotless, unfocused, and in the final few pages there's a cascade of new themes and character arcs tossed in almost out of nowhere. The startling and interesting moments are brief and spread apart (Mahajan is incapable of capitalizing on narrative momentum) but we then get pages and pages and pages devoted to scenes that serve absolutely no purpose.

The only redeeming character is Gita, whom we get ample exposure to in the first 100 pages, but who then drops almost all the way out of the narrative. The rest is devoted to Karishma and Laxman, both of whom are perplexing and unlikable (kind of the point, but still) and basically one note.

If it had been confined to 200-250 pages, this could have been a 5 star book.

[Mallory · Rating 4 out of 5]

I stumbled upon a free, uncorrected proof of The Complex at a bookstore. I enjoy reading realistic fiction books about India and complex familial relationships, so this book seemed up my alley.

At first I felt a bit overwhelmed by the number of characters, but Mahajan spent time digging into many of their motivations and points-of-view. I may have benefited from a family tree, but I believe I sorted everyone out after more detailed chapters cleared things up. I found the women, particularly Gita and Karishma, to be the most compelling. I love a story where everyone is flawed but has redeeming qualities. This rung true in The Complex. Even the seemingly most corrupt, Laxman, had complexity.

Some parts of the story dragged, but the usage of one-sentence chapter cliffhangers kept me steadily reading. Overall, I loved the opportunity to be one of the first to read and review this well-written novel. If you like messy relationships, character-driven storylines, and themes of economic classes, family duty, and the seeking of opportunities, this is a book for you.

[Sasha Fitzgerald · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t hate it but this was far too long for how little happened.

[Lisa Goodmurphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Delhi from the late '70s to the '90s, The Complex is about several generations of the Chopra family living in the sprawling apartment complex built by their revered patriarch, SP Chopra, who was one of India's political architects. Several family members make an appearance in the novel but the focus is on SP's son Laxman, the youngest of his 9 children, and two of SP's grandsons, brothers Sachin and Brij, as well as their respective spouses, Gita and Karishna.

Sachin and Gita emigrated to the U.S. and live in Michigan for many years while Brij and Karishna are raising their sons in the complex. Laxman, also resident in the complex, is a mediocre businessman, a ruthless politician and a sexual predator who assaults and abuses family members. The novel is narrated retrospectively by a great-grandson of SP's who is now a middle-aged man living in the apartment complex awaiting his father's release from prison after serving a 25 year sentence for murder.

The reader is slowly drawn into the layers of this compelling family saga. It's a character-driven novel that takes place against the backdrop of rapid economic and political change that post-Independence India was experiencing in the '80s and '90s including the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, anti-Sikh riots, protests of the Mandal Commission report, political instability in Punjab and Kashmir, the rise of Hindu nationalism and economic liberalization. Interesting, informative and well-written - this is the first book by this author that I have picked up and I enjoyed the read.

[Mark Miano · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was almost a DNF for me, so why the four stars? The writing is fantastic and I admire anyone who can conjure the skein of characters found in THE COMPLEX. Karan Mahajan is a writer well worth the time and effort. I almost didn’t finish because I hit a midsummer slump, mostly caused by too much work and summertime visitors. This one was worth pushing through for.

[Theiija Bala · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book lowkey made me hella uncomfortable, but I suppose that’s a sign of writing that sticks with you. I also appreciated getting more context on Indian sociopolitical issues I’ve only heard one perspective on at home so on the whole would recommend. Glad I stuck w it @meghna 😭

[Sahil Luthra]

The novel makes many allusions to the Ramayana, which is fitting. Both episodic and sweeping, it grapples with power, sex, and politics, and it is a story about both exile and the forces that pull you home. I was very impressed by the scale of this one

[Reese Bentzinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the characterization in this book. In particular, the characters of Gita and Karishma are wonderfully written. Really appreciated the navigation of family ties and expectations of womanhood.

Laxman too is a well-written, albeit awful, character. Without spoiling too much, his arc focuses on who gains power.

The saga weaves in the rise of Hindu Nationalism, the decline of Congress, and class issues. Though this takes place in the past, it’s highly relevant today.

Would recommend.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this in pieces over a month-ish, pretty long book. Might’ve appreciated it more in a different headspace or w/ more knowledge about 1970s India

[Alessia Veltkamp · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but over long, story of extended Chopra family living in “ The Complex.” Each family member’s story is highlighted by the current political situation. Some members were more interesting than others.

[Emily Parkany · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is good. Lots of surprises including that maybe the characters are real. Definitely a novel but eye-opening about life in Delhi for upper middle class in the 70s and 80s. Multigenerational. Religion, politics (which are more intertwined than expected), family dynamics—there’s a lot here.

[Shreya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engrossing, but felt let down by the ending. For all the set-up and the intricacy of the plot, the last few chapters wrapped up too neatly/without adequate payoff for those secondary storylines.

[Mary Koleno · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED The Complex. The Chopra family was the epitome of dysfunctional family love and torment.