What do you think?
Nebraska
This tragicomic and intellectually ambitious story of the Chatterjee family and the disaster that tore them apart is an urgent new entry in the tradition of the family novel—for fans of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch and Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads.
Anna Chatterjee has just been released from prison. Her husband, Prabir, has arrived to take her home and found her already gone; their flighty and artistic grown children, Neal and Nina are left to navigate the fallout both from Anna's disappearance and the trauma that splintered their lives years earlier. But as the story ricochets between past and present, the question Where is Anna now?
As the story moves between decades and continents, Monica Datta considers the twentieth century experiment and its outcomes, often set against the testimony of the spritely Lacanian Jean-Louis Katz, whose life becomes entangled with their own as well as that of the Bengali psychoanalyst B.X. Roy.
With precision, range and deep emotional insight, Nebraska is an all-enveloping fictional experience not to be missed. It is a novel of characters who, while deeply separate, respond to the irresolvable questions that make us human.
Anna Chatterjee has just been released from prison. Her husband, Prabir, has arrived to take her home and found her already gone; their flighty and artistic grown children, Neal and Nina are left to navigate the fallout both from Anna's disappearance and the trauma that splintered their lives years earlier. But as the story ricochets between past and present, the question Where is Anna now?
As the story moves between decades and continents, Monica Datta considers the twentieth century experiment and its outcomes, often set against the testimony of the spritely Lacanian Jean-Louis Katz, whose life becomes entangled with their own as well as that of the Bengali psychoanalyst B.X. Roy.
With precision, range and deep emotional insight, Nebraska is an all-enveloping fictional experience not to be missed. It is a novel of characters who, while deeply separate, respond to the irresolvable questions that make us human.
- GenresFictionLiterary Fiction
480 pages, Hardcover
First published June 26, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
July 7, 2026
a tragicomic and intellectually ambitious family saga with a 3.05 average rating. either i would love this or hate it.
guess which.
https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...
this was ambitious and abstract and confusing for ambition and abstraction and confusion's sake.
it's a hefty, unreadable tome, which claims to follow a mother who tried to kill her son and herself and succeeded only in the former; her husband and living children; a psychiatrist who witnessed the event; and a random guy who's writing about all of them.
all of this sounds vaguely interesting, and yet this is more a book of useless footnotes (multiple, genuinely, said "I have no note" – if only there were a way to indicate that!!!) and rambling asides and inexplicable connections.
reading it was a trial.
bottom line: i don't dnf books, but this made me tempted to start.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
guess which.
https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...
this was ambitious and abstract and confusing for ambition and abstraction and confusion's sake.
it's a hefty, unreadable tome, which claims to follow a mother who tried to kill her son and herself and succeeded only in the former; her husband and living children; a psychiatrist who witnessed the event; and a random guy who's writing about all of them.
all of this sounds vaguely interesting, and yet this is more a book of useless footnotes (multiple, genuinely, said "I have no note" – if only there were a way to indicate that!!!) and rambling asides and inexplicable connections.
reading it was a trial.
bottom line: i don't dnf books, but this made me tempted to start.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Nebraska is one of those literary novels that seems far more interested in demonstrating how intelligent and inventive its author is than in telling a story readers can actually follow.
I want to be clear: I don't object to ambitious literary fiction. Some of my favorite novels are complex, layered, and intellectually challenging. But there's a difference between complexity and opacity. A skilled writer can explore big ideas, experiment with form, and still provide readers with enough grounding to understand what is happening, who the characters are, and why any of it matters. Too often, Nebraska fails at those basic storytelling tasks.
The novel follows the fractured Chatterjee family across decades and continents, weaving together multiple timelines, perspectives, philosophical digressions, and historical observations. In theory, that sounds fascinating. In practice, I spent much of the book trying to figure out who people were, how they were connected to one another, and what exactly was happening in a given scene. I found myself repeatedly flipping back through previous chapters, not because the material was emotionally or intellectually rich, but because the narrative frequently lacked clarity.
The footnotes became the perfect symbol of my frustrations with the book. There are pages and pages of them, many only tangentially related to the text they're supposedly supporting. I understand the irony and self-awareness Datta is aiming for, but for me the effect was exhausting rather than clever. Instead of enriching the story, the footnotes constantly pulled attention away from it. At times they felt less like a narrative device and more like the author stepping onto the stage to remind everyone how inventive she was being. Reading them, I kept picturing the author waving her arms and shouting, "Look at me! I wrote this book! I'm the actual main character!"
Some readers will undoubtedly enjoy that kind of metafictional self-consciousness. If you love novels that foreground their own construction and constantly call attention to the author behind the curtain, this may work for you.
For me, good writing doesn't need to announce itself every few pages. Great prose can be sophisticated without being impenetrable. It can be open to interpretation while still communicating clearly. It can add depth and breadth without demanding that readers fight through unnecessary layers of literary performance.
By the end, I wasn't frustrated because Nebraska was challenging. I was frustrated because it felt like the novel was actively resisting being read. And that's a distinction that matters.
An advance reader copy of this book (ARC) was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I want to be clear: I don't object to ambitious literary fiction. Some of my favorite novels are complex, layered, and intellectually challenging. But there's a difference between complexity and opacity. A skilled writer can explore big ideas, experiment with form, and still provide readers with enough grounding to understand what is happening, who the characters are, and why any of it matters. Too often, Nebraska fails at those basic storytelling tasks.
The novel follows the fractured Chatterjee family across decades and continents, weaving together multiple timelines, perspectives, philosophical digressions, and historical observations. In theory, that sounds fascinating. In practice, I spent much of the book trying to figure out who people were, how they were connected to one another, and what exactly was happening in a given scene. I found myself repeatedly flipping back through previous chapters, not because the material was emotionally or intellectually rich, but because the narrative frequently lacked clarity.
The footnotes became the perfect symbol of my frustrations with the book. There are pages and pages of them, many only tangentially related to the text they're supposedly supporting. I understand the irony and self-awareness Datta is aiming for, but for me the effect was exhausting rather than clever. Instead of enriching the story, the footnotes constantly pulled attention away from it. At times they felt less like a narrative device and more like the author stepping onto the stage to remind everyone how inventive she was being. Reading them, I kept picturing the author waving her arms and shouting, "Look at me! I wrote this book! I'm the actual main character!"
Some readers will undoubtedly enjoy that kind of metafictional self-consciousness. If you love novels that foreground their own construction and constantly call attention to the author behind the curtain, this may work for you.
For me, good writing doesn't need to announce itself every few pages. Great prose can be sophisticated without being impenetrable. It can be open to interpretation while still communicating clearly. It can add depth and breadth without demanding that readers fight through unnecessary layers of literary performance.
By the end, I wasn't frustrated because Nebraska was challenging. I was frustrated because it felt like the novel was actively resisting being read. And that's a distinction that matters.
An advance reader copy of this book (ARC) was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Did Not Finish
May 5, 2026I think I'm just too tired for this one. At 20%, I have no idea what's going on and, frankly, don't care.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Recently I have started attending meetings with senior, principals and chief architects. They have all mastered the speak of vague and obscure. If I have to understand the hell they are talking about, I have to dig deep into subtexts, footnotes and dozens of appendix. And I end up not following through and ask someone face to face, confessing am a grade A idiot and don't understand whatever they were talking cause I can't keep track of meandering.
Nebraska is exactly like this. A good amount of info is dumped in footnotes, told passively by a person uninvolved in the story, and passages of academic proofs. This could have served as a methodology of deconstructing the psyche of a mother with deep rooted complex mental issues, but it only distracts from understanding the person as a character, forcing a form of faux sympathy in an elaborated form. I was confused while reading, took about 20% of the book to understand the structure Datta was going for, but in the end it was just troublesome.
Unfortunately I am not the audience for this book. It was an intellectual exercise that I didn't have interest in doing.
Thank you to Netgalley and Astra Publishing House for providing me with a free copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.
Nebraska is exactly like this. A good amount of info is dumped in footnotes, told passively by a person uninvolved in the story, and passages of academic proofs. This could have served as a methodology of deconstructing the psyche of a mother with deep rooted complex mental issues, but it only distracts from understanding the person as a character, forcing a form of faux sympathy in an elaborated form. I was confused while reading, took about 20% of the book to understand the structure Datta was going for, but in the end it was just troublesome.
Unfortunately I am not the audience for this book. It was an intellectual exercise that I didn't have interest in doing.
Thank you to Netgalley and Astra Publishing House for providing me with a free copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.
July 19, 2026
Actively hated this book. oh well. Just skip to the end.
July 19, 2026
For the first 40-50 pages, I wasn't sure if I would be able to finish this book. My reaction was much like the negative reviews here: it was all too much. The elaborate framing device, the copious footnotes, the multiple strands of the story. Then it slowly began to come together. If you can make it through the first 100 pages, it's worth it.
July 22, 2026
I really wanted to like this book. It was such an odd structure that it took away from my enjoyment. So much time hopping. So much perspective changing. Footnotes??? I took a reviewer's advice and skipped the footnotes. I don't think I would have finished the book if I had read them. I was so confused at times, the FN would have thrown me over the edge. Am I too dim for this type of literature?
Read
September 23, 2026I cannot rate this book. I hated the first 50 pages, liked the middle 250, got a little bored with the next 100 and was confused by the last 50.
This is a non-chronological story of an Indian immigrant to the US via Scotland who commits filicide and then fails to commit suicide and is imprisioned. It is intermingled with the story of a psychoanalyist and told by one of his devotees. Almost every page has 2-3 footnotes which I hated at first and then was eventually able to tolerate. Some quote scholarly studies, some provide information about Hinduism or other pieces of arcania and some say things like, "I have no comment." Glad to have read it now that it is over, but 100% not what I expected from the review.
This is a non-chronological story of an Indian immigrant to the US via Scotland who commits filicide and then fails to commit suicide and is imprisioned. It is intermingled with the story of a psychoanalyist and told by one of his devotees. Almost every page has 2-3 footnotes which I hated at first and then was eventually able to tolerate. Some quote scholarly studies, some provide information about Hinduism or other pieces of arcania and some say things like, "I have no comment." Glad to have read it now that it is over, but 100% not what I expected from the review.
Want to Read
July 15, 2026New Yorker rec - best books of 2026 so far
July 25, 2026
While I didn't exactly love this book, I'm pretty surprised by this low average rating. It's very interesting, in a unique format. It is a challenging read, but I did not find it all that hard to follow: five main characters and the perspective switched among them. There are lots of time hops but I enjoy that. The citations were an interesting feature - I finally figured out that simply reading all the footnotes at the end of each chapter worked well for me. I sort of skimmed them until I found an interesting nugget I wanted to read more carefully. Honestly, something I did not care for is that there really was no likeable character.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
A stirring story of a tragic death observed by a psychoanalyst whose testimony sends a mother to prison is then re-examined by a student of the psychiatrist - a clever set up for an intriguing novel.
It’s 1992. Annakali “ Anna” Chatterjee and her eight-year-old daughter, Rahbinda, are waiting in a New York subway for a train when they fall onto the tracks. Anna survives but her daughter does not. Jean-Louis Kurtz, a French psychoanalyst, observes the tragedy and it’s his testimony that results in Anna’s 15 year sentence for manslaughter. Upon her release Anna moves to Nebraska, changes her name, cuts ties with her family and moves in with a group of Christian missionaries. Meanwhile, Anna’s other children, Neal and Nina are left to deal with the trauma of the death of their sibling and the loss of their mother.
The book is narrated by B. X. Roy, a student of Kurtz who has diverged from Kurtz’s theories (Lancanian psychoanalysis - I saw Kurtz as a stand-in for the actual developer of this theoretical system, Jacques Lacan which posits much of its thinking on language and thought). Using Kurtz’’s notes, Roy believes Kurtz’s interpretation of events is misguided - lots of snark goes on here.
The book also spans decades, history and geography. It goes from post-partition India to Bangladesh to Scotland and finally to Nebraska. I think this was necessary in order to fit the analysis of Lancanianism in the book as to the effects of post-colonialism. The Chatterjees come from same Bengali town as Roy too. It shows the pitfalls of the immigration experience especially as it relates to assimilation.
This is a complex novel. But that it is filled with spirit, humor, and a profound examination of the human experience makes it a splendid read. I ordered the book to experience it again.
My thanks to NetGalley and Astra House for giving me access to this amazing ARC.
It’s 1992. Annakali “ Anna” Chatterjee and her eight-year-old daughter, Rahbinda, are waiting in a New York subway for a train when they fall onto the tracks. Anna survives but her daughter does not. Jean-Louis Kurtz, a French psychoanalyst, observes the tragedy and it’s his testimony that results in Anna’s 15 year sentence for manslaughter. Upon her release Anna moves to Nebraska, changes her name, cuts ties with her family and moves in with a group of Christian missionaries. Meanwhile, Anna’s other children, Neal and Nina are left to deal with the trauma of the death of their sibling and the loss of their mother.
The book is narrated by B. X. Roy, a student of Kurtz who has diverged from Kurtz’s theories (Lancanian psychoanalysis - I saw Kurtz as a stand-in for the actual developer of this theoretical system, Jacques Lacan which posits much of its thinking on language and thought). Using Kurtz’’s notes, Roy believes Kurtz’s interpretation of events is misguided - lots of snark goes on here.
The book also spans decades, history and geography. It goes from post-partition India to Bangladesh to Scotland and finally to Nebraska. I think this was necessary in order to fit the analysis of Lancanianism in the book as to the effects of post-colonialism. The Chatterjees come from same Bengali town as Roy too. It shows the pitfalls of the immigration experience especially as it relates to assimilation.
This is a complex novel. But that it is filled with spirit, humor, and a profound examination of the human experience makes it a splendid read. I ordered the book to experience it again.
My thanks to NetGalley and Astra House for giving me access to this amazing ARC.
September 27, 2026
The premise is so interesting, but- despite what Joumana Khatib said in The Book Review Podcast<:i>, the footnotes were super distracting and- no matter how I managed them- reading right away, waiting until I’d finished gotten to a good stopping place, skipping them entirely…I was still losing momentum and getting confused. (Most of the footnotes tie in obscure pieces of connection that critique colonialism and globalization- but some are important bits of main characters’ back story.)
On a very simple level, it’s a story of a mother who loses herself and kills her son- and another mother’s son who is searching for a nurturing mother. (Katz- the son- is a Lacanian psychoanalyst and the narrator of the book, the generator of all the footnotes, is a former colleague who is obsessively angry with him.) We learn how those two people ended up at the scene of the crime and how they reconnect many years later- and how that crime impacted Anna’s other children (to some degree- resolution is not Datta’s main interest). In fact, resolution is of such little interest to Datta that it is obvious when an editor has chimed in to say…wait, what happened to THESE people? And Datta’s response does not always make a lot of sense within the world she created- see the Gubruds, for example.
Datta’s primary interest is in tracking how large-scale phenomena (globalization, countries splitting and forming, citizenship status, cultural beliefs, gender roles, family roles, class status, intellectual movements) impact individual choices (or maybe presents how limited our choices really are). It’s a really ambitious project that I don’t think she pulled off.
On a very simple level, it’s a story of a mother who loses herself and kills her son- and another mother’s son who is searching for a nurturing mother. (Katz- the son- is a Lacanian psychoanalyst and the narrator of the book, the generator of all the footnotes, is a former colleague who is obsessively angry with him.) We learn how those two people ended up at the scene of the crime and how they reconnect many years later- and how that crime impacted Anna’s other children (to some degree- resolution is not Datta’s main interest). In fact, resolution is of such little interest to Datta that it is obvious when an editor has chimed in to say…wait, what happened to THESE people? And Datta’s response does not always make a lot of sense within the world she created- see the Gubruds, for example.
Datta’s primary interest is in tracking how large-scale phenomena (globalization, countries splitting and forming, citizenship status, cultural beliefs, gender roles, family roles, class status, intellectual movements) impact individual choices (or maybe presents how limited our choices really are). It’s a really ambitious project that I don’t think she pulled off.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
NEBRASKA is neither good nor bad. It is advertised as being for fans of Kiran Desai and Jonathan Franzen, and both are among my favorite authors. So NEBRASKA is a natural fit for me, and I was excited to start and dig in the minute the ARC hit my Kindle—yet, I didn’t love it.
I finished it but NEBRASKA isn’t going to be one I think about much longer. The characters? Likable enough. The plot? Good concept. The prose? Adequate. I tried to identify a few good quotes to include in this review, but I never found one that felt beautiful enough to share here. As other reviewers mention, the footnotes are a distraction—it is possible to do dense footnotes well in an epic social novel (for example, Zia Raider Rahman pulled them off in IN THE LIGHT OF WHAT WE KNOW) but in NEBRASKA they were too much and too little all at once.
For fans of the Desai/Eugenides/Franzen brand of fiction, NEBRASKA will scratch the itch. But just like how nobody will mistake ERAGON for LORD OF THE RINGS, nobody will mistake NEBRASKA for THE CORRECTIONS.
So, in sum? If you love the genre, read NEBRASKA. Otherwise, feel free to move on to something else.
I asked for and received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I finished it but NEBRASKA isn’t going to be one I think about much longer. The characters? Likable enough. The plot? Good concept. The prose? Adequate. I tried to identify a few good quotes to include in this review, but I never found one that felt beautiful enough to share here. As other reviewers mention, the footnotes are a distraction—it is possible to do dense footnotes well in an epic social novel (for example, Zia Raider Rahman pulled them off in IN THE LIGHT OF WHAT WE KNOW) but in NEBRASKA they were too much and too little all at once.
For fans of the Desai/Eugenides/Franzen brand of fiction, NEBRASKA will scratch the itch. But just like how nobody will mistake ERAGON for LORD OF THE RINGS, nobody will mistake NEBRASKA for THE CORRECTIONS.
So, in sum? If you love the genre, read NEBRASKA. Otherwise, feel free to move on to something else.
I asked for and received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
August 3, 2026
Like the fractal branches of ice Ana is looking through in her friend/social worker/rescuer's office, this story grows out in bright, sharp fragments. The pleasure is in seeing the pattern. The narrative is rooted in the characters' minds, where past is always there, alongside present--in the way minds actually work. With the wide cast of characters, each one a "real character"--idiosyncratic in reactions, life style, and history--the main event of the child's death and the mother's guilt is refracted through many sharp lenses in a complex way that eludes judgement, but rewards attention. The footnotes are mostly an amusing insight into the finicky brain of B.X.Roy, but full of delightful asides.
Yes, it's a challenging book. But why not? Surely we need some of those.
Yes, it's a challenging book. But why not? Surely we need some of those.
July 6, 2026
I was so excited to get to this book that I kept checking each of my library systems daily before publication. What an exciting and original premise! The many footnotes (some of which were of interest, others distracting for no discernible reason) clogged things up needlessly and I began skipping them entirely. Some writers need to show how smart they are, again and again and again and in the process mar their work with the muddy footprints of their efforts. Ultimately tiresome.
Did Not Finish
September 6, 2026Dnf at 50%. Honestly I found the writing style interesting and filled with some great dry humor, but I struggled with following the 18 different paths each section took-I think it would have been better served to have longer “books” for each character vice not covering much distance in the shorter books and switching around too much. The pages of footnotes on the ebook version did not serve the flow well. Maybe I’ll come back to it in a physical version.
Read
September 24, 2026Spoiler:Nebraska finally coalesced at the very end. It was exceedingly slow going, and the payoff wasn’t there. I really don’t mind multiple storylines going on, and have even enjoyed books that don’t wrap up neat as a pin. I was lost often, and even that doesn’t turn me off if the author is skillful.
Near the end I wondered if I knew more about de Toqueville’s travels, if that would have been helpful but mostly I doubt it. I might do some research, just for myself in this day and age.
Near the end I wondered if I knew more about de Toqueville’s travels, if that would have been helpful but mostly I doubt it. I might do some research, just for myself in this day and age.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
A complex and beautiful story. Anna gets out of prison and then disappears leaving her kids and husband behind and what ensues is how the family copes with her disappearance and the circumstances that led them there. Loved the past and present timeline to help explain the history. This is truly a human story. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
July 9, 2026
After 100 Pages of disjointed, out-of-context narrative with footnotes (!) that may or may not have been relevant, I gave up. Some characters just randomly appeared, others who seemed central to the narrative were woefully undeveloped. TBH, didn’t seem worth my time despite a rave review from the New York Times.
July 15, 2026
Absolutely brilliant, confusing, pretentious, ambitious, tragic, and original. Usually I get post-modern and literary fiction in separate novels but this one pulled it off. Yes, it takes awhile to know what the hell is going on, but it’s worth it.
July 18, 2026
Wish I hadn’t bought into the hype on this book. It might have been a good story about immigration and colonialism but first the fussy overstory of the psychoanalyst and his contrived relationships with members of the Chatterjee family. Glad to be done with it.
August 11, 2026
Maybe eventually the story will come together, but after 100 pages it is still a slog to get through this book, so I am giving up. I first thought that the footnotes on every page would provide an interesting addition to the story, but the vast majority of them add nothing useful.
September 11, 2026
It’s disappointing that so many of the reviews are from people who only read part of this book. Nebraska has a simple story, in a layered packaging. But the layering creates a profound sense of character.
Want to Read
March 10, 2026thank you to the lovely people at netgalley and astra house for the arc ₊˚ʚ(๑>•̀๑)
July 5, 2026
So many footnotes and no desire to read them. Not sure if they would have made the story better or not but couldn’t continue on knowing I wasn’t reading the book correctly.
Did Not Finish
July 23, 2026Stopped at 3% which seems pretty quick but this feels like a waste of time.
August 31, 2026
Sheboygan
September 1, 2026
Structurally irritating. Did all of those footnotes really add enough for it to be worth it?
September 5, 2026
A very odd book. Very disjointed story line. Footnotes galore in a fiction book is strange. The ending is not satisfying, but Datta indicates the book is not over. It is over for me.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews