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When the tragic death of his son compels Dr. Neil Downs to flee New York City for India, he takes a job as the resident physician at the American Embassy, where he is introduced to the paradoxes of Indian social and political life. Unable to mourn, and angry about a betrayal on the part of his wife, Sarah, Neil seeks philosophical refuge in the writings of Levi Furstenblum, whose work grapples with the nature of language and god after Auschwitz. At the same time, he becomes involved with a prestigious Indian family and forms a bond with Holika, the rebellious, activist niece of the family’s industrial and political doyen. 

This tightly plotted novel will be irresistible to anyone who yearns for affirmation in spirituality and matters of the heart. A stunning reinterpretation of the Abraham and Isaac sacrifice myth, And the Word Was is guaranteed to leave readers profoundly moved.

“A brave work!” —Library Journal

“A magnificent debut, smart and intense, but accessible and riveting… simply a great novel! —Booklist

“Bauman has given Downs a refreshingly ruthless, unflinching, and humorous voice with which to chronicle his painful progress toward an uncertain future… Think Albert Camus, Marcel Proust, and Larry David engaged in a debate on the meaning of sacrifice and forgiveness.” —Boldtype

“[In And The Word Was] notions of easily categorized complicity and culpability are challenged, as his doctor protagonist, who treated his dying son after a school shooting, withdraws from his marriage and the world as he knew it for New Delhi. The overwhelming power of the work is buttressed by a startlingly and sensorily vivid description of life in India.” —Entertainment Today

“[The book does] what only novels can: Make us gasp, situp, say yes, the world has changed. This is what it feels like to live now.” —Los Angeles Magazine

“The sights and smells of India, and the customs of the cross-section of people Neil meets, are rendered so convincingly that you will come to think you’ve lived in India as well. Neil’s spiritual journey and how he finds his way back to his wife, his home, and to his own sense of self, makes And The Word Was as rewarding in parts as it is intellectually challenging in others.” —The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles

“Bauman’s prose evokes with a staccato fierceness Neil’s alienation and desperate need to find meaning.” —Publishers Weekly

“[And The Word Was] is utterly absorbing, a page-turner in the most literal sense of the phrase. Seamlessly structured, it is at once intellectually ambitious and emotionally alive. Bruce Bauman is one of the most engaging and engaged writers and thinkers that I know.”  —Rebecca Goldstein, author of The Mind-Body Problem and winner of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Jewish Book Award, and a Whiting Award.

“This book in its entirety is deelpy moving, sophisticated, intricate, elegant, with a neatly woven narrative and powerful culminations. It is a loving, sensitive novel, which asks many hard questions about life and faith.”  —Joanna Scott, author of Arrogance: A Novel and winner of a MacArthur Fellowship and the Lannan Foundation Award