Nebraska
by Monica Datta
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Pub Date Jun 23 2026 | Archive Date Jun 09 2026
Astra Publishing House | Astra House
Talking about this book? Use #Nebraska #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!
Description
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 looms: 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.
A Note From the Publisher
BIG, BIG, BIG, AND TOTALLY OF ITSELF: Like other big family novels NEBRASKA invites the reader to live within its world and to become part of its family, and its universe. But unlike lots of kitchen sink novels, there’s a deeply felt tragedy at the heart of the story, one that’s entirely sympathetic and heart breaking.
WHERE’S WALDO? Jean Louis Katz parades through this novel, ties it together and is always at the wrong place at the wrong time and keeps things moving—keep track of JLK and the whole novel unfolds miraculously—like an origami accordion.
ASTONISHING RANGE: A book that has the uncanny ability to make the reader feel smarter than they are—in part because of the brilliant insiderish back and forth between BK Roy and JLK.
A TRUE GLOBAL RECKONING: The whole world and the history of one family’s immigration through the 20th and 21st Century plays out in NEBRASKA, reestablishing the broken promise of globalism through trade and intellectual dialogue.
THROW IT IN YOUR BAG—THIS IS A DOORSTOP YOU’LL CARRY EVERYWHERE!
Advance Praise
"Astonishing. A marvel of storytelling. Monica Datta's Nebraska is made of the stuff of great and uncompromising ambition. An exploration of a family enduring the oceanic and the unthinkable, with meandering byways into everything imaginable, from Lacanian psychoanalysis to postcolonial architecture to Icelandic sheepdogs. A novel at once ferociously intelligent, humane, and bursting at the seams with splendor." —Shobha Rao, author of Indian Country
"Datta has designed an intricate labyrinth that lures you in, while exposing unreachable corners of the human psyche. Compelling!" —Ledia Xhoga, author of Misinterpretation
"Robust, multifaceted . . . In style and depth, the book recalls Pale Fire, Infinite Jest, and Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift, all big-swing metafictions that upend our understanding of history and humanity. / A sharp, cross-continental tale of heartbreak and identity." —Kirkus Reviews, starred
"Monica Datta is a remarkable, original voice. This is a novel of labyrinthian depth and ambition, but ultimately, a thrilling, deeply human portrait of a family. I was left stunned, in the finest way possible, for a long time afterward." —Nayantara Roy, bestselling author of The Magnificent Ruins
"In Nebraska, Monica Datta works her magic as one of our most compelling, humane, and pioneering contemporary storytellers. While deftly braiding past and present, far-flung places and multiple voices, mysteries and histories both private and public, Datta gives us the unforgettable story of the Chatterjee family, their tragedies and jubilations. Nebraska is a brilliantly imaginative achievement, one that should bring Monica Datta a whirlwind of adventurous new readers." —Bradford Morrow, author of The Forgers Trilogy and The Prague Sonata
"Nebraska is a novel that thinks hard and feels deeply, and its pathos cuts as sharply as its acerbic humor. Every absurdity is saturated with grief. Blazingly smart and soaringly ambitious, Datta trusts her reader to keep up, and the rewards of keeping up are truly profound."
—Stephanie Soileau, author of Should the Waters Take Us
Marketing Plan
MARKETING AND PUBLICITY PLANS • Book club outreach • Fiction awards campaign • Magazine profile of breakout author • Serious review coverage in national outlets as well as smaller literary journals • New York City bookstore launch • Early excerpt in a major national outlet • Targeted bookseller outreach • Pitch for interviews on podcasts, radio, and in print • Influencer outreach and giveaways
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781662603068 |
| PRICE | $29.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 464 |
Links
Available on NetGalley
Average rating from 9 members
Featured Reviews
Ellen R, Reviewer
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.
Review will be posted on Instagram and Amazon on pub day and links added to NetGalley.
Andrea D, Reviewer
Nebraska is an intellectually ambitious novel that asks the reader to move slowly and attentively through a family story shaped by chaos. Monica Datta is interested less in resolution than in how lives are altered by forces that never fully explain themselves, and in how families continue to orbit one another even after trust has broken beyond repair.
The novel opens in the aftermath of Anna Chatterjee’s release from prison, a moment that should mark a return but instead signals further issues. Her husband, Prabir, arrives to take her home only to find that she has already vanished, leaving their adult children, Neal and Nina, to confront both her absence and the long-buried trauma that has shaped their lives. From there, the narrative moves fluidly between past and present, across decades and continents.
Datta’s scope is expansive. The Chatterjee family story unfolds alongside the work of the theorists Jean-Louis Katz and B.X. Roy, weaving psychoanalysis, postcolonial history, and intellectual inheritance into the novel's fabric. These elements are not decorative.
What distinguishes Nebraska is Datta’s confidence in complexity. She does not simplify her characters nor does she flatten the novel’s ideas into a digestible conclusion. The children are neither victims nor villains. Each character moves through the world carrying unfinished stories,
The prose is dense, rewarding close reading and patience. This novel trusts its reader to sit with ambiguity and to follow its winding paths. The emotional impact builds gradually, emerging through repetition..
Nebraska is a serious, searching work of literary fiction that grapples with family, history, and the limits of understanding. It is designed to engage and challenge concepts of human connection.
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