Chad Harbach’s first novel, “The Art of Fielding,” arrived in 2011 with a fanfare of publicity and a flurry of plaudits. Amid the hoopla, readers learned of the book’s checkered history. Harbach spent a decade writing it; it was turned down by umpteen literary gatekeepers; eventually, one plucky young agent took a chance on it, and a bidding war ensued. News of a high advance unleashed correspondingly high expectations. Could this debut live up to the ballyhoo surrounding it?

For the most part, it could and it did. Harbach’s novel, which went on to become a bestseller, was a big-hearted, multi-stranded affair that followed several characters in and around Westish College, memorably described as “that little school in the crook of the baseball glove that is Wisconsin.” The baseball analogy was apt.…