The Index of Self-Destructive Acts
Description
On the day Sam Waxworth arrives in New York to write for the Interviewer, a street-corner preacher declares that the world is coming to an end. A data journalist and recent media celebrity--he correctly forecast every outcome of the 2008 election--Sam knows a few things about predicting the future. But when projection meets reality, life gets complicated.
His first assignment for the Interviewer is a profile of disgraced political columnist Frank Doyle, known to Sam for the sentimental works of baseball lore that first sparked his love of the game. When Sam meets Frank at Citi Field for the Mets' home opener, he finds himself unexpectedly ushered into Doyle's crumbling family empire. Kit, the matriarch, lost her investment bank to the financial crisis; Eddie, their son, hasn't been the same since his second combat tour in Iraq; Eddie's best friend from childhood, the fantastically successful hedge funder Justin Price, is starting to see cracks in his spotless public image. And then there's Frank's daughter, Margo, with whom Sam becomes involved--just as his wife, Lucy, arrives from Wisconsin. While their lives seem inextricable, none of them know how close they are to losing everything, including each other.
Sweeping in scope yet meticulous in its construction, The Index of Self-Destructive Acts is a remarkable family portrait and a masterful evocation of New York City and its institutions. Over the course of a single baseball season, Christopher Beha traces the passing of the torch from the old establishment to the new meritocracy, exploring how each generation's failure helped land us where we are today. Whether or not the world is ending, Beha's characters are all headed to apocalypses of their own making.
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About the Author
Christopher Beha is a deputy editor at Harper's magazine. His essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the London Review of Books, The Believer, Bookforum, and elsewhere. He is the author of the novel What Happened to Sophie Wilder and the memoir The Whole Five Feet. A New York City native, he lives in Brooklyn with his wife.
Reviews
Beha's earlier work has been rightfully compared to the work of Graham Greene, and in this new novel Beha does what only Greene and a handful of other novelists have been able to accomplish: make God, belief, and doubt the stuff of serious fiction--even down to the probing dialogue of his characters.--Nick Ripatrazone
Beha's marvelous new novel is about, and more often than not exemplifies, pretty much everything good that New York City has lost in the past few bad years: wit, liberalism, journalism, and the dignity of self-destruction.--Joshua Cohen, author of Attention: Dispatches from a Land of Distraction
Beha is a sneaky-great plot-maker and thinker; by the time he wraps up this compassionate 21st-century tale of ambitious people looking for somewhere to place their faith--religion, statistics, love, money, country--you can see the clouds starting to gather into the moral Category 5 we're currently enduring.--Jonathan Dee, author of The Locals
Its breadth, ambition, and command are refreshing. An admirably big-picture, multivalent family saga.
A book's worth of thoughtful essays folded into a kick-ass novel.--Nell Zink
Filled with stunning acts of hubris and betrayal, Beha's deliciously downbeat novel picks apart the zeitgeist, revealing a culture of schemers and charlatans. This cutting send-up of New York progressive elitism should do much to expand Beha's audience.
