The Nimbus
A Novel
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3.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Named a best book of the year by The New Yorker and The Washington Post
A riveting 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 it appears only intermittently, and not to everyone, the nimbus 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 the otherworldly glow; 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Baird debuts with a caustic send-up of the campus novel centered on a divinity professor's attempt to cash in on a strange phenomenon involving his toddler. Adrian Bennett's two-year-old son, Luca, begins to exhibit a miraculous glow, as seen by Adrian, his thesis student Paul Harkin, and members of Luca's medical team. Others can't see "the nimbus," as the glow comes to be known, including Luca's mother—Adrian's wife, Renata—nor can audiences at Adrian's lectures on his Chicago campus, which doesn't stop him from trying to profit from the subject. Paul hopes to exploit Luca, too, focusing his thesis on the nimbus. Renata, meanwhile, struggles with raising Luca and their older son during Adrian's frequent absences, such as his trip to Texas to hobnob with a billionaire willing to throw money at Adrian's school to research the phenomenon. Alum Warren Kayita jumps on the Luca bandwagon after learning the baby brings good luck, and tries to arrange for his loan shark to meet Luca in exchange for debt forgiveness. Baird's satire takes no prisoners in its unflinching condemnation of those who hope for miracles while evading their day-to-day responsibilities. This packs a stinging punch.
