AND THE WORD WAS

Bauman's ambitious, uneven debut novel travels from New York to India to explore overwhelming loss, faith and belonging. Neil Downs is a Jewish emergency room physician whose only son, Castor, is shot in a Columbine-like massacre and then dies under Neil's care. Further complicating the tragedy is the possibility that Neil's wife, Sarah, a painter, may have cheated on him with a famous artist at the time of their son's murder. Unable to cope with Castor's death and the ensuing media frenzy, Neil flees to New Delhi, where his friend Charlie Bedrosian, the American ambassador, gives him a job as embassy physician. There he searches out Levi Furstenblum, a Holocaust survivor whose writings serve as a kind of guidebook for angry bereavement. Neil also falls into an affair with Holika, a beautiful, well-connected Indian woman whose politics challenge Indian social mores. With these new companions, Neil searches for meaningful direction for his life amid the brutal poverty of New Delhi. At its best, Bauman's prose evokes with a staccato fierceness Neil's alienation and desperate need to find meaning. At other times, Bauman relies on clichés ("How could I have been so blind," Neil utters during one crucial exchange) that sink the novel in melodrama. Despite the bumpy narrative, the book explores some difficult emotional and theological territory. (Mar.)