The Nimbus

De: Robert P. Baird

Narrado por: André Santana

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 work, 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.

©2025 Robert P. Baird (P)2025 Dreamscape Media

A lasting impact

At first, I wasn't sure this book was for me-it felt a bit over my head, and I wasn't sure I was following everything. But then something shifted: I got completely drawn in by the story. The characters felt real and complex, and the theme started to resonate with me more and more as I read.
What I appreciated most was how the book didn't rush to explain everything. It trusted the reader to sit with questions and slowly connect the dots. By the time I finished, I realized how much it had impacted me—not just as a story, but in the way it made me think about faith and different relationships.
If you're willing to give it a bit of patience in the beginning, this book really rewards you.
It's one of those rare stories that stays with you even after the last page.

An enticing collision of the secular and religious worlds

I very much enjoyed this novel The flawed but enticing characters and a toddler’s special ability draws them all to an explosive conclusion. The narrator was fantastic, the subject matter very fun and thought provoking and the writing well done.