The novel begins in 1968 with the birth of a son to Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, a Bengali couple that settled in Boston. While Ashima is giving birth the reader is taken back in time to 1961 when Ashoke, still a young man in India, almost lost his life in a train derailment. Only the book he was clutching – a collection of Nikolai Gogol’s short stories – revealed him to the rescuers, which saved his life. With this story in mind, the Gangulis confront the problem of what to do about their newborn son’s name. He needs both a ‘bhalonam’ and a ‘daknam’ to keep with Bengali tradition, but the letter carrying the good name never arrives from Ashima’s grandmother in Calcutta, so he starts his life with only his familiar name, Gogol.

Gogol’s first home is a fully furnished apartment in a house, the top two floors of which are occupied by their landlords, the Montgomerys. At first Ashima is very lonely but as the baby grows, so, too, does their circle of Bengali acquaintances. When Gogol is six months old they have his ‘annaprasan’ ceremony. Gogol is little over a year old when they get the news of the death of Ashima’s father and they leave for India. By 1971 the Gangulis move to the Boston suburbs at 67 Pemberton Road. When Gogol turns five Ashima finds that she is pregnant again. Gogol is admitted to the town’s public school under the name of Nikhil. But the principal, Mrs. Lapidus, explains that due to their son’s preference he will be known as Gogol in school.

When Gogol’s sister is born the Gangulis are ready with the name, Sonali, both as good name and pet name. But at home she is called Sonu, then Sona, and finally Sonia. Their lives in New England swell with fellow Bengali friends that at Sonia’s rice ceremony they had to rent a building. For Gogol and Sonia Durga pujo does not stand in comparison with Christmas in America. Ashima makes them an American dinner once a week as a treat. One day on afield trip to a graveyard Gogol realizes that how uncommon his name is and how names die over time. On Gogol’s fourteenth birthday a huge party is thrown by the Gangulis for their Bengali friends. When the party is over Ashoke presents Gogol with The Short Stories of Nikolai Gogol. He tells Gogol that his favourite author spent mosty of his adult life outside his homeland like him but he cannot bring himself to tell Gogol about his train accident. The next year Ashoke gets his sabbatical and they go for eight months to India. When they return their American friends are happy to see them back but ask nothing about where they’ve been.

When Gogol is in high school, Mr. Lawson, their teacher, tells them about the life of Nikolai Gogol. Once in a party he meets a girl called Kim. Instead of the unromantic Gogol he introduces himself as Nikhil. It is as Nikhil that he kisses a girl for the first time. Before his freshman year at Yale, Gogol goes to the Middlesex Probate and Family Court and changes his name to Nikhil officially. During his sophomore year Gogol gets involved with a girl called Ruth. Gogol’s parents are not pleased with the relationship and refuse to give him money to go to England when Ruth is in Oxford for a semester. After Ruth’s return they find it difficult top adjust with each other and the relationship ends. Sonia goes with her mother for three weeks to India to attend a cousin’s wedding leaving. One day when Gogol is late coming from Yale because of a train accident, his father tells him the truth of him being named so. It has a profound effect on Gogol.

Gogol graduates in architecture and starts living in New York. There, Gogol gets into a relationship with Maxine Ratliff. He meets her parents and virtually starts living with her. On his way with her to the Ratliff’s lake house in New Hampshire he drops by at Pemberton Road to meet his parents because his father will be leaving for Ohio on a nine months’ research grant. At the lake house Gogol also meets Maxine’s grandparents. Ashima is alone at home surrounded by the security system installed by Ashoke. Ashoke comes home every three weekends. One day Ashima receives a call from Ashoke that he is in the hospital for an ordinary checkup. Later the hospital informs her that her husband has expired. Sonia flies back from San Francisco to be with Ashima. Gogol goes alone to Cleveland to cremate his father. Back home for then days they are in mourning and on the eleventh day they invite their friends to mark the end of the mourning period. Ashima has no desire to escape to Calcutta now and be far from the place where her husband made his life, the country in which he died. While going back to New York from his mother and sister, Gogol is reminded of the many times he had driven with his family to the sea. He remembers how once he and his father made their way to the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater where his father told him, "Remember that you and I made this journey, that we went together to a place where there was nowhere left to go."

After a year the family plans to travel to Calcutta to scatter Ashoke’s ashes in the Ganges. Maxine cannot understand being excluded from their plans and says that she feels jealous of Gogol’s mother and sister. The relationship breaks. As time passes by, one day Ashima asks Gogol to meet someone called Moushumi Mazoomdar whom he had known as a girl. They meet and get involved romantically. Earlier, Moushumi after years of being convinced that she would never have a lover had moved to Paris with no specific plans and began to fall effortlessly into affairs. It is there that she fell in love with Graham who happily accompanied her to visit her relatives in Calcutta. On returning when she realizes that he was just pretending to enjoy himself in Calcutta, they argue and their wedding is canceled. It is in this condition that she meets Gogol and within a year they marry. Gogol meets Moushumi’s American friends and she reveals to them his real name.

After the first anniversary of their marriage Gogol and Moushumi gradually becomes estranged from each other. Moushumi starts having an affair with Dimitri, which eventually leads to the breakup of her marriage at a time when Gogol was planning a trip to Italy as a Christmas gift for her. Ashima prepares to leave for India intending to live six months of her life in India and six months in the states. They are going to sell their Pemberton Road house because Sonia, who has become an attorney, is going to marry her boyfriend, Ben. On Christmas eve Ashima throws a party, for the last time at Pemberton Road, for her friends in America. She busies herself with the cooking. Gogol, Sonia and Ben are there to host the party. As the guests arrive and the party begins Gogol goes upstairs to get his father’s Nikon camera but instead he retrieves the unread book that his father had presented him on his fourteenth birthday. He turns to the first story, The Overcoat, and as the party goes downstairs, he starts to read.