It has been described[1][2][3] as one of Murnane's greatest and most ambitious works, although some reviewers[4][5] have criticised its use of repetition, lack of clear structure and reliance on writing as a subject matter.

The early parts of the book are set in Szolnok County, Hungary, where the narrator is writing in "heavy-hearted Magyar"[12] to his editor and translator, Anne Kristaly Gunnarsen.

[20] The narrator also describes at length his memories of having read Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles,[21] and quotes from a number of works, including a book by W. H. Hudson,[22] a biography of Marcel Proust,[23] the New Testament[24] and, as mentioned above, Gyula Illyés's People of the Puszta.

[25] In 1995, a Swedish translation of the book (Inlandet) was released;[25] this edition did not garner much attention,[26] although reviews of Murnane's work, including Inland, have generally been kinder in Scandinavia than in the US and UK.

[25] Helen Harris, reviewing the book for the Times Literary Supplement, wrote that "[by] constantly game-playing and undermining the edifice of his own fiction, Murnane is left with an end product too artificial to have much evocative force".

[2] Coetzee wrote: "The emotional conviction behind the later parts of Inland is so intense, the somber lyricism so moving, the intelligence behind the chiseled sentences so undeniable, that we suspend all disbelief".

[2] Peter Craven, writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, called it "a work that dazzles the mind with its grandeur and touches the heart with a great wave of feeling".