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This week’s installment of Ten Questions features Robert P. Baird, whose debut novel, The Nimbus, is retired contiguous from Henry Holt. On a mean time connected a assemblage field successful Chicago, the toddler lad of an ambitious divinity schoolhouse prof named Adrian Bennett mysteriously starts to glow. The nimbus, arsenic the airy comes to beryllium known, offers nary clues to its root and frustrates each effort astatine rational explanation. Though the nimbus appears lone intermittently, and not to everyone, the otherworldly glow rapidly upends the lives of each those who brushwood it, including Paul Harkin, Adrian’s broke postgraduate student, who likes being a postgraduate pupil a spot excessively much; Renata Bennett, Adrian’s omnicompetent wife, who can’t spot her lad glowing adjacent arsenic the nimbus turns her beingness upside down; and Warren Kayita, a librarian connected the tally from a convulsive criminal. An intelligence satire, searing household portrait, and thrilling metaphysical page-turner, The Nimbus offers a humorous and heavy exploration of the persistence of spiritual content successful a secular property and humanity’s enduring hunt for meaning. Elliot Ackerman calls The Nimbus a “big-hearted caller astir the biggest questions—marriage, religion, parenthood, meaning,” adding, “The Nimbus is comic and profound, a caller that practically glows. Robert P. Baird is simply a immense talent.” Robert P. Baird is simply a writer and exertion who has worked astatine the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, the Paris Review, the Chicago Review, and Esquire. He grew up successful Chico, California, studied mechanical engineering and quality biology astatine Stanford, and completed a master’s grade and a PhD astatine the University of Chicago Divinity School. He lives successful Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, children, and dog.
1. How agelong did it instrumentality you to constitute The Nimbus?
I had the thought for the novel, and decided to constitute it, successful 2018. I completed a draught that was acceptable for submission successful the outpouring of past year. So: six years commencement to finish. But the penning was not continuous for that full interval. For 1 thing, I was doing a just magnitude of journalism and freelance editing portion I was moving connected the novel. And then, of course, determination was COVID. My woman is an infectious-disease doc astatine a safety-net infirmary successful Brooklyn, truthful erstwhile schools closed successful March 2020 I became the superior caregiver for our 2 children. Plus I was doing a clump of reporting connected the pandemic that near maine nary clip for fiction. Looking back, The Nimbus feels to maine much similar a three- oregon four-year project, but it’s hard to accidental for sure.
2. What was the astir challenging happening astir penning the book?
I privation I could accidental it was thing high-minded similar trying to find a prose benignant capable to the age, oregon orienting myself existentially truthful that I could perceive the deepest rhythms of the universe. The truth, though, is that by acold the biggest situation was pushing done my doubts astir whether I could constitute the publication I wanted to constitute and negociate to get it published. When I was successful my twenties I would person scoffed astatine worrying truthful overmuch astir whether I could merchantability the manuscript. How crass! How commercial! That was earlier I had the acquisition of penning a caller that didn’t get published. It was besides earlier I had to measurement not conscionable weeks but months and years of moving connected a publication that mightiness not ever magnitude to thing against journalism that came with a much oregon little guaranteed paycheck. And, of course, that was earlier I became a parent, which for each its fantastic aspects besides meant the evaporation of the marginal early-morning and play clip that I utilized to bargain for fiction. While penning The Nimbus I was keenly aware—probably excessively keenly aware—that this mightiness beryllium my past superior changeable astatine penning a novel, and for a agelong clip it felt similar it conscionable wasn’t bully capable to warrant each the clip and disbursal it was demanding from maine and my family. That thought weighed beauteous dense successful my mind.
3. Where, when, and however often bash you write?
I constitute astatine home. I wrote overmuch of The Nimbus astatine a table successful my bedroom, but I present person a tiny bureau with a table and speechmaking chair. When I’m successful the mediate of a project, I effort to constitute astatine slightest six days a week. I aftermath up aboriginal whether I privation to oregon not, truthful I usually spell for a greeting tally and effort to get to my table by 8 oregon nine. I’ll propulsion till 2 oregon 3 successful the afternoon, erstwhile the sentence-generating precincts of my encephalon thin to spell connected strike. That’s erstwhile I power to reading, oregon editing, oregon household errands. Eight 100 words a time is my accustomed goal. Five 100 is an acceptable minimum. If I apical a thousand, I interruption retired the joss sticks and confetti.
4. What are you speechmaking close now?
I similar to support respective speechmaking lanes moving astatine once. For a caller task I’m moving on, I’m speechmaking a spot of Boccaccio’s Decameron each day. In anticipation of my publication circuit (The Nimbus has a batch to bash with religion), I’ve been looking backmost done Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age (Harvard University Press, 2007) and David Bentley Hart’s superb and cranky That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation (Yale University Press, 2019). When I’m done with those I’m hoping to ace into 2 books by friends: Megan Greenwell’s Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream (Dey Street Books, 2025), which publishes the aforesaid time arsenic The Nimbus, and Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America (Random House, 2025), Sam Tanenhaus’s caller biography of William F. Buckley. As acold arsenic fabrication goes, I conscionable finished Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (Knopf, 1992), which someway I’d ne'er work before, and americium getting underway connected Aaron John Curtis’s Old School Indian (Hillman Grad, 2025). And portion I’m speechmaking little poesy than I’d similar close now, I precocious finished Forrest Gander’s terrific Mojave Ghost (New Directions, 2024) and person been moving my mode done a caller variation of Ronald Johnson’s Ark, published by the fantastic Flood Editions successful Chicago.
5. Which author, successful your opinion, deserves wider recognition?
Given the authorities of speechmaking successful America, immoderate writer who’s worthy speechmaking erstwhile is astir by explanation not getting the designation they deserve. Edward P. Jones, Lauren Groff, Paul Beatty, Patricia Lockwood, and the precocious Hilary Mantel are nary one’s thought of obscure, but they are each still, to my mind, underappreciated. I’ll besides say, though, that adjacent wrong the attentional confines of publication civilization arsenic it exists now, I miss the days of the thriving midlist. As thrilling arsenic it is to ticker books similar All Fours (Riverhead Books, 2024) by Miranda July, Martyr! (Knopf, 2024) by Kaveh Akbar, and James (Doubleday, 2024) by Percival Everett become genuine taste sensations—all of them deservedly so!—I privation we had amended means to assistance readers find their mode to superb oddities similar Dayswork (Norton, 2023) by Jennifer Habel and Chris Bachelder, and You Dreamed of Empires (Riverhead Books, 2024) written by Álvaro Enrigue, and translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer.
6. What is the biggest impediment to your penning life?
Time, ever time. I recognize wholly wherefore truthful galore radical are truthful hopeless for AI: Writing and speechmaking some instrumentality inordinate amounts of time, and they some often consciousness wildly inefficient. But I’m perfectly convinced that you can’t cheat either endeavor, conscionable similar you can’t cheat the clip it takes to beryllium a bully genitor oregon romanticist partner. And—especially if you’re a genitor and a spouse portion besides being a writer—it ne'er feels similar determination are capable hours successful the day, weeks successful the year, oregon years successful the beingness to get it each done.
7. What is 1 happening that your cause oregon exertion told you during the process of publishing this publication that stuck with you?
My agent, Amelia Atlas, and editor, Tim Duggan, person some fixed maine plentifulness of terrific wisdom, but 1 portion of proposal I support returning to lately came from a friend, Elliot Ackerman. He warned maine that it’s tremendously casual to get distracted by each the worldly that isn’t happening to and for your publication alternatively of paying attraction to the bully things that are. The winner-take-all logic that dominates publishing (as it dominates each different portion of American life) makes it mode excessively casual to gaffe into a scarcity mindset. Precisely due to the fact that I’m not immune to that temptation, I person to punctual myself perpetually that that mindset is simply a unspeakable mode to deliberation astir art. Yes, I privation my publication to find its mode into the hands of readers who volition bask it—as galore arsenic possible, obviously—but I besides cognize that bully books are bully for the world. The much of them that get celebrated, the amended it is for everyone.
8. If you could spell backmost successful clip and speech to the earlier you, earlier you started The Nimbus, what would you say?
If I knew it was each going to enactment out—the publication would find a signifier I was blessed with, and that idiosyncratic would privation to people it—I’d archer myself precisely that.
9. Outside of writing, what different forms of enactment were indispensable to the instauration of The Nimbus?
The Nimbus is acceptable successful and astir a divinity schoolhouse successful Chicago, and I spent astir a decennary successful and astir a divinity schoolhouse successful Chicago. Though the caller is not autobiographical successful immoderate nonstop way—it concerns a mysteriously glowing toddler—I evidently drew connected that acquisition to make my fictional world. I besides spent astir a decennary moving successful and astir magazines, arsenic a writer, editor, fact-checker, and transcript editor. I deliberation my prose benefitted a batch from the subject of word-count constraints, and that clip successful longform journalism besides taught maine to deliberation connected a precise granular level astir however a fixed portion of penning is engaging oregon taxing a reader’s attention.
10. What’s the champion portion of penning proposal you’ve ever heard?
“Always service the reader.” Annie Dillard told maine this twenty-odd years ago, erstwhile I was moving arsenic a caput for her and her husband, the precocious Robert D. Richardson, Jr. What she meant is that you should write, oregon astatine the precise slightest revise, with a scholar ever successful mind. It doesn’t mean that you can’t beryllium weird oregon peculiar oregon adjacent off-putting. It does mean that you request to cognize what risks you’re moving and however overmuch of it your scholar tin take. It besides doesn’t mean that you should effort to constitute for everyone—“Please the scholar you want” was different of her dicta—but unless you’re a genius channeling spirits from the Great Unknown past you person to retrieve that you’re not penning into a void. As writers, we’re each successful the presumption of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner: We’re stopping strangers connected a mode to a wedding, erstwhile the feast is acceptable and they tin perceive the merry din. We beryllium it to them not to maltreatment their time.
