The Nimbus - by Robert P Baird (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A brilliant debut novel about a child whose literal enlightenment sets the stage for an exuberant tragicomedy of marriage, religion, and parenthood. On an otherwise ordinary fall day on a university campus in Chicago, the toddler son of an ambitious divinity school professor named Adrian Bennett mysteriously starts to glow. The nimbus, as the strange, soft light comes to be known, offers no clues to its origin and frustrates every attempt at rational explanation. Though the nimbus appears only intermittently, and not to everyone, the otherworldly glow quickly upends the lives of all those who encounter it, including Paul Harkin, Adrian's broke and feckless graduate student, who likes being a graduate student a little too much for his own good; Renata Bennett, Adrian's omnicompetent wife, who can't see her son glowing even though the nimbus is turning her life upside down; and Warren Kayita, a down-on-his-luck librarian and aging divinity school alumnus on the run from a violent criminal. As news about the nimbus spreads around the university and beyond, Adrian, Paul, Renata, and Warren are set on a collision course that will threaten their lives and put their deepest convictions to the test. At once a rollicking intellectual satire, a searing portrait of a family in crisis, and a thrilling metaphysical page-turner, The Nimbus offers a comic and profound examination of the persistence of spiritual belief in a secular age and humanity's timeless search for meaning"--

Book Synopsis

A New Yorker Best Book of the Year

A dazzling debut novel about a child whose literal enlightenment sets the stage for an exuberant
tragicomedy of marriage, religion, and parenthood.

On an otherwise ordinary fall day on a university campus in Chicago, the toddler son of an ambitious divinity school professor named Adrian Bennett mysteriously starts to glow. The nimbus, as the strange, soft light comes to be known, offers no clues to its origin and frustrates every attempt at rational explanation.

Though the nimbus appears only intermittently, and not to everyone, the otherworldly glow quickly upends the lives of all those who encounter it, including Paul Harkin, Adrian's broke and feckless graduate student, who likes being a graduate student a little too much for his own good; Renata Bennett, Adrian's omnicompetent wife, who can't see her son glowing even though the nimbus is turning her life upside down; and Warren Kayita, a down-on-his-luck librarian and aging divinity school alumnus on the run from a violent criminal. As news about the nimbus spreads around the university and beyond, Adrian, Paul, Renata, and Warren are set on a collision course that will threaten their lives and put their deepest convictions to the test.

At once a rollicking intellectual satire, a searing portrait of a family in crisis, and a thrilling metaphysical page-turner, The Nimbus offers a comic and profound examination of the persistence of spiritual belief in a secular age and humanity's timeless search for meaning.

Review Quotes

A New Yorker Best Book of the Year

"A lucky few books are gifted with a premise so intriguing as to be irresistible. Such was the case with The Nimbus....Baird admirably creates tension between the weighty metaphysical questions to which his characters have devoted their professional lives and the way they actually confront the mystical."
--Ayana Mathis, The New York Times

"In this wry debut novel, which reflects on modern parenting and campus politics, a community is upended when a two-year-old boy begins to glow... Baird's quasi-satirical story emphasizes the tussle between high-mindedness and baser instincts."
--The New Yorker

"Baird is brilliant, and so is his remarkable novel about faith, family, and the life of the mind. Read this wonderful book. You'll be glad to own it."
--Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

"Robert P. Baird has written a novel of remarkable breadth, one that ponders both the big mysteries (God, miracles) and the small ones (petty graduate school advisers). The Nimbus is a revelation, a book that explores our deep longing for something extraordinary in an otherwise ordinary world."
--Nathan Hill, author of Wellness

"For all the lofty talk of religion and faith and academia, this is a novel about dirty work of parenthood--or rather, how parenthood collapses the binary of sacred and profane."
--Jane Hu, The Washington Post

"I think that there are miracles in the world, but realistic novels don't usually tackle them. Baird's intelligence, compassion, and humor illuminate this astonishingly original debut, which somehow manages to ask hard questions about how to live while also being enormously fun to read."
--Nell Freudenberger, author of The Limits

"Tantalizing... The idea of Mr. Baird's debut is to explore what happens when an apparent miracle occurs among atheists and intellectuals."
--Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

"A big-hearted novel about the biggest questions--marriage, religion, parenthood, meaning. The Nimbus is comic and profound, a novel that practically glows. Robert P. Baird is a huge talent."
--Elliot Ackerman, author of Waiting for Eden

"I can't remember the last time I enjoyed getting lost in the pages of a novel this much. Set in an academic milieu that is captured with delicious precision, and populated with intricately drawn characters as intelligent and compelling as they are believable, The Nimbus is as humane and psychologically astute as it is entertaining--the kind of novel that reminds you why you read fiction in the first place."
--Adelle Waldman, author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.

"The premise of Robert P Baird's debut novel is a delight... The Nimbus is a hilarious and powerful portrait of faith (or perhaps more accurately the crisis of faith) in a secular and lost age... both big hearted and boundless in its spiritual examination."
―Chicago Review of Books

"A caustic send-up of the campus novel.... Baird's satire takes no prisoners.... This packs a stinging punch."
―Publishers Weekly

"Baird's debut carefully considers the role of faith in a world largely devoid of it.... intriguing, entertaining, and often searing in its critiques of academia, this is also a fascinating portrait of a family pulled apart by ambition and unexpected events."
―Booklist

About the Author

Robert P. Baird grew up in Northern California, studied mechanical engineering and human biology at Stanford, and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He has worked as an editor at The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The Paris Review, Chicago Review, and Esquire and has published journalism, essays, and reviews in those magazines and other outlets. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and children. The Nimbus is his first novel.