Christopher Beha

Christopher Beha is the editor of Harper’s Magazine. He is the author of two previous novels, What Happened to Sophie Wilder and Arts & Entertainments, and a memoir, The Whole Five Feet. His writing has appeared in the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, and the London Review of Books. On the day data journalist and recent media celebrity Sam Waxworth arrives in New York to write for the Interviewer, a street-corner preacher declares that the world is coming to an end. Whether or not the world is ending, Beha’s characters in The Index of Self-Destructive Acts (Tin House Books) are all headed to apocalypses of their own making. Sam’s first assignment is a profile of disgraced political columnist Frank Doyle, known to Sam for his sentimental works of baseball lore. But when Sam meets Frank at Citi Field for the Mets’ home opener, he finds himself entangled into Doyle’s crumbling family empire.  There’s a matriarch who lost her investment bank to the financial crisis; a son who hasn’t been the same since his second combat tour in Iraq; the son’s best friend and successful hedge funder, showing cracks in his spotless public image. And then there’s Frank’s daughter, with whom Sam becomes involved—just as his wife arrives from Wisconsin. None of them know how close they are to losing everything, including each other. The Financial Times called it “A big, sympathetic book about the follies and failings of elite New Yorkers […] Beha creates a supple context in which to explore a series of intersecting efforts to find or regain footing and meaning in life.”