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The Index of Self-Destructive Acts
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 sports statistician, data journalist, and newly minted media celebrity who correctly forecasted every outcome of the 2008 election, Sam’s familiar with predicting the future. But when projection meets reality, things turn complicated. Sam’s editor sends him to profile disgraced political columnist Frank Doyle. To most readers, Doyle is a liberal lion turned neocon Iraq war apologist, but to Sam he is above all the author of the great works of baseball lore that sparked Sam’s childhood love of the game—books he now views as childish myth-making to be crushed with his empirical hammer. But Doyle proves something else in person: charming, intelligent, and more convincing than Sam could have expected. Then there is his daughter, Margo, to whom Sam becomes desperately attracted—just as his wife, Lucy, arrives from Wisconsin. The lives of these characters are entwined with those of the rest of the Doyle family—Frank’s wife, Kit, whose investment bank collapsed during the financial crisis; his son, Eddie, an Army veteran just returned from his second combat tour; and Eddie’s best childhood friend, hedge funder Justin Price. While the end of the world might not be arriving, Beha’s characters are each headed for apocalypses of their own making.
520 pages, Hardcover
First published May 5, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 288 reviews
July 30, 2020
Messy sprawl of a novel. A lot happens and it’s all interesting. Some of the prose of self-indulgent. Pages long rants about this and that. Lots of baseball minutiae. But overall, it’s a satisfying, ambitious, absorbing novel about the ways big and small that we destroy ourselves by surrendering to our lesser natures.
October 18, 2020
This was not the book I was looking for, considering anything described as Franzenesque is kind of passé these days. But it appeared on the National Book Award longlist for fiction, got a glowing review on Goodreads from Roxane Gay, and had a baseball stats angle to it that made it enticing.
The book follows the lives of several protagonists living in New York in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Each quite successful but soon becomes thrown into crisis, the cause of their demise largely their own doing. Framed as a world possessing incredible amounts of knowledge about everything and statistics about probability that should inform our every action, Beha's novel delves into why we still make these life altering mistakes despite knowing very well the risks involved. Why do our emotions prevent the rational decision-making that the stats heads champion?
This was a rambling and long novel that was completely engrossing and wonderful to read. One of the best books I've read this year
The book follows the lives of several protagonists living in New York in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Each quite successful but soon becomes thrown into crisis, the cause of their demise largely their own doing. Framed as a world possessing incredible amounts of knowledge about everything and statistics about probability that should inform our every action, Beha's novel delves into why we still make these life altering mistakes despite knowing very well the risks involved. Why do our emotions prevent the rational decision-making that the stats heads champion?
This was a rambling and long novel that was completely engrossing and wonderful to read. One of the best books I've read this year
July 14, 2020
Alas, if only there had been more baseball.
The Index of Self Destructive Acts—cleverly so named for one of the many statistical measures created by the great Bill James—sets itself up as a story about baseball, statistics, and how those function as metaphor in a more global sense, but ultimately turns out to be a largely depressing Bildungsroman that is helmed by an incredibly unlikable central character.
We all know a Sam Waxworth. We’ve all dated several. He’s a Real Nice Guy until you dare to ask for anything requiring significant effort or courage from him on your behalf.
The extreme unlikability of the selfish, self-absorbed, and lazy Waxworth poisons the narrative early on and graduates from irritating to full on infuriating by the midpoint of the story. I actually hated him far more than Frank, who is the closest thing the book has to a villain.
There are a number of appealing and interesting secondary characters (Kit, Eddie, Justin, and Lucy), but all spend most of the narrative suffering and more than one meets a pretty bad end.
Lucy is really the only character in the book who is allowed any kind of happiness or peace in the end (and to be fair, she’s certainly the character you want this for more than anyone else). Her story arc also features the book’s only truly successful humor in the form of her two twenty-something roommates Krista and Danielle.
But pity poor Kit and Eddie, who seem to exist only to suffer, Kit for a relatively minor transgression about which she has our empathy and Eddie simply for being a näif.
He’s a sad, well-meaning foil for his sister Margo, who clearly sees herself as a victim, even when acting predatory. After Sam, she’s probably the book’s least likable character. She’s clearly meant to be viewed as a lost, rudderless girl, though it’s hard to find one of those in literature who invoked less empathy. Poor Me is a tough look to wear while actively pursuing someone else’s husband.
Frank is at least intended to be unlikable, and his story arc feels the most appropriate to character. Justin was also well written...Likable and well meaning but ultimately guilty as the day is long of the crimes of which he is accused.
Beha writes gorgeously, and what little baseball-related content the book had was good, but ultimately the deeply abhorrent protagonist, sense of injustice, and long rambling exchanges between characters over inanities and philosophical effluvia made the book an overlong, grinding slog.
The Index of Self Destructive Acts—cleverly so named for one of the many statistical measures created by the great Bill James—sets itself up as a story about baseball, statistics, and how those function as metaphor in a more global sense, but ultimately turns out to be a largely depressing Bildungsroman that is helmed by an incredibly unlikable central character.
We all know a Sam Waxworth. We’ve all dated several. He’s a Real Nice Guy until you dare to ask for anything requiring significant effort or courage from him on your behalf.
The extreme unlikability of the selfish, self-absorbed, and lazy Waxworth poisons the narrative early on and graduates from irritating to full on infuriating by the midpoint of the story. I actually hated him far more than Frank, who is the closest thing the book has to a villain.
There are a number of appealing and interesting secondary characters (Kit, Eddie, Justin, and Lucy), but all spend most of the narrative suffering and more than one meets a pretty bad end.
Lucy is really the only character in the book who is allowed any kind of happiness or peace in the end (and to be fair, she’s certainly the character you want this for more than anyone else). Her story arc also features the book’s only truly successful humor in the form of her two twenty-something roommates Krista and Danielle.
But pity poor Kit and Eddie, who seem to exist only to suffer, Kit for a relatively minor transgression about which she has our empathy and Eddie simply for being a näif.
He’s a sad, well-meaning foil for his sister Margo, who clearly sees herself as a victim, even when acting predatory. After Sam, she’s probably the book’s least likable character. She’s clearly meant to be viewed as a lost, rudderless girl, though it’s hard to find one of those in literature who invoked less empathy. Poor Me is a tough look to wear while actively pursuing someone else’s husband.
Frank is at least intended to be unlikable, and his story arc feels the most appropriate to character. Justin was also well written...Likable and well meaning but ultimately guilty as the day is long of the crimes of which he is accused.
Beha writes gorgeously, and what little baseball-related content the book had was good, but ultimately the deeply abhorrent protagonist, sense of injustice, and long rambling exchanges between characters over inanities and philosophical effluvia made the book an overlong, grinding slog.
March 2, 2020
Data journalist and all around numbers guy Sam Waxworth gained notoriety for correctly predicting the every outcome of the 2008 election and has moved to New York to crank out daily statics-driven online articles for the Interviewer. When he's asked to write a longer print profile on Frank Doyle, a disgraced author and political commentator, Waxworth is drawn into Doyle’s mesmerizing family just as their world is falling apart.
Frank is charming in person, and despite himself, Waxworth cannot help but admire the man whose books inspired his boyhood love of baseball, even as he witnesses him drink too much and reiterate his refusal to apologize for the racist remark that cost him his job and the respect of his wider community. Kit, Frank's wife, is hiding a huge financial loss from the family and desperate to save them from utter ruin. Eddie, their son has just returned from his second tour in Iraq and is struggling to find meaning in a society that has all but forgotten his sacrifice. Margo, their daughter, has dropped out of grad school after sleeping with her professor and begins a mutually flirtatious relationship with Sam. Meanwhile, Lucy, Waxworth's wife has moved to New York to follow her husband and teach special needs children for the new school year. And a man named Herman Nash has just predicted the end of the world.
A timely novel about the ambitions that drive and destroy us, Christopher Beha's The Index of Self-Destructive Acts explores family, religion, and transition in the complex moral gray areas of our modern world.
Frank is charming in person, and despite himself, Waxworth cannot help but admire the man whose books inspired his boyhood love of baseball, even as he witnesses him drink too much and reiterate his refusal to apologize for the racist remark that cost him his job and the respect of his wider community. Kit, Frank's wife, is hiding a huge financial loss from the family and desperate to save them from utter ruin. Eddie, their son has just returned from his second tour in Iraq and is struggling to find meaning in a society that has all but forgotten his sacrifice. Margo, their daughter, has dropped out of grad school after sleeping with her professor and begins a mutually flirtatious relationship with Sam. Meanwhile, Lucy, Waxworth's wife has moved to New York to follow her husband and teach special needs children for the new school year. And a man named Herman Nash has just predicted the end of the world.
A timely novel about the ambitions that drive and destroy us, Christopher Beha's The Index of Self-Destructive Acts explores family, religion, and transition in the complex moral gray areas of our modern world.
October 11, 2020
Still wrapping my head around this one!!
It's Franzen-esque, although a lot more plot driven. There's a LARGE cast of characters to keep track of (understatement of the year). And what a cast of characters they are!! They were my favorite element of this book.
Sprawling, epic, and entertaining. Was it trying to tackle too much?? Maybe. But why should I care about that when the end result is this damn good.
It's Franzen-esque, although a lot more plot driven. There's a LARGE cast of characters to keep track of (understatement of the year). And what a cast of characters they are!! They were my favorite element of this book.
Sprawling, epic, and entertaining. Was it trying to tackle too much?? Maybe. But why should I care about that when the end result is this damn good.
June 3, 2020
What is this book about? Baseball, New York City, racism, family decline, and statistics among other things. But it is about much more than that. First, I should say that though this book has big ideas in it it also just plain engaged me. I Read it very quickly because I the author made a genuinely interesting book. But what is the larger idea? It is right there in the title "self-destructive acts." In other words, it is a catalogue of sins. But Beha is not just listing sins but exploring how irrational sin is. One of the main characters is a numbers geek and is convinced that all you have to do is count, there is not larger meaning to life and that is that. Needless to say, that character finds himself making self-destructive choices that don't add up. Various characters represent various views of the world; number crunching nihilist, traditionalist, poetic imagination, rudderless spoiled kid. But the characters are never caricatures and the author does a great job of creating sympathy for them even though them make bad decisions. That is one of the virtues of good literature; it helps you see the world through someone else's eyes even if you don't agree with them. It creates empathy. Another effect of the novel that I appreciate is that it leave one wondering "where do self-destructive acts come from?" That is a question well worth asking.
dnf
April 26, 2021Honestly, it is VERY rare that I don't finish a book - especially a book ostensibly about baseball - but this one just didn't do it for me. I never saw anything interesting in the plot and found no engaging characters. I felt the writing was rather sparse and lacked depth. I am a bit mystified on how this book earned such high ratings on GR. Anyway, not sure I'll make another attempt at this unless commenters give me some truly compelling reasons.
September 30, 2020
On the 2020 National Book Award list for fiction, this book could well be my book of the year! A long tome about a well-to-do literary family in New York, I was completely immersed in the different character threads. I was afraid the author would wrap everything up with a happy ending but it was much more complex than that.
April 13, 2021
In her review Roxane Gay called this a "messy sprawl of a novel" and that feels accurate. It is also pretty great. Our characters are in a constant state of building, burning down, and rebuilding their lives. Everyone is thwarted by passion, and (differently but no less profoundly) thwarted by denial of passion. Everyone is making huge mistakes that are causing serious damage to their well-being. Everyone has their own index of self-destructive acts.
The book is totally absorbing, beautifully written, an old fashioned epic - and I use the term "old-fashioned" in the very best way. Modern books are so "me" oriented, they tend to turn an ordinary character, or perhaps two characters, inside out. I like a lot of those books, but I miss stories of interrelationship on a slightly grander scale. There are so many moving parts here, and so many different ways of self-destructing. Still most of these characters' stories, and their connections to one another, come together brilliantly. There are a few very farfetched "convenient" meetings or incidences of missed events/information (particularly in the last 75 pages), but not so many that they diminished my overall enjoyment.
For the most part, even the jerks in the story are endearing. Sam is such a bumbling imperious man-child. I would despise him in real life, and god knows I did not root for him in the book, but i also loved him and I hope his future (were he to have one off the page) is filled with self-actualization and other good things. Frank is also an imperious man-child, but an older one, more certain he knows everything in the world than even Sam. Frank is also far less grateful for the gifts that have been bestowed upon him by the universe. He plays at being an iconoclast, but is in fact obsessed with what people think about him, so obsessed that once people censure him in any way they cease to exist for him. Still, I was fond of him in the way that I am fond of Philip Roth's Nathan Zuckerman. It is hard to hate smart funny people whom the world has told they are the center of the universe, and who have taken that quite literally.
There is one central character who was problematic for me, and that is Kit. She comes off like some chic UES giving tree. No one who has ever run an investment bank makes decisions the way she does. I found her completely unconvincing, I am pretty sure Beha knows less about the world of finance than about journalism, higher ed, publishing, and baseball. Kit's story was more jarring than it might otherwise have been because the book's other characters' lives existed in those other realms and they felt real, felt like people I have known. Kit is such an important part of the book that I took a star for that. This was a high 4. A pure escape into a complicated messy group of people in a world that eschews the life-giving beauty of surprises and things inexplicable in favor of the false certainty of statistical analysis. This is a world that does not allow its celebrities or demi-celebrities a single error. preferring to see the world in black and white. exalting at the fleeting pleasure of burning people at the stake rather than the subtle long-term pleasure of a redemption arc. It makes for a story that is very modern, and also nostalgic in a way that doesn't make me want to vomit (I am not a nostalgic person at all, but I miss the hell out of uncertainty and second chances.) A great read.
The book is totally absorbing, beautifully written, an old fashioned epic - and I use the term "old-fashioned" in the very best way. Modern books are so "me" oriented, they tend to turn an ordinary character, or perhaps two characters, inside out. I like a lot of those books, but I miss stories of interrelationship on a slightly grander scale. There are so many moving parts here, and so many different ways of self-destructing. Still most of these characters' stories, and their connections to one another, come together brilliantly. There are a few very farfetched "convenient" meetings or incidences of missed events/information (particularly in the last 75 pages), but not so many that they diminished my overall enjoyment.
For the most part, even the jerks in the story are endearing. Sam is such a bumbling imperious man-child. I would despise him in real life, and god knows I did not root for him in the book, but i also loved him and I hope his future (were he to have one off the page) is filled with self-actualization and other good things. Frank is also an imperious man-child, but an older one, more certain he knows everything in the world than even Sam. Frank is also far less grateful for the gifts that have been bestowed upon him by the universe. He plays at being an iconoclast, but is in fact obsessed with what people think about him, so obsessed that once people censure him in any way they cease to exist for him. Still, I was fond of him in the way that I am fond of Philip Roth's Nathan Zuckerman. It is hard to hate smart funny people whom the world has told they are the center of the universe, and who have taken that quite literally.
There is one central character who was problematic for me, and that is Kit. She comes off like some chic UES giving tree. No one who has ever run an investment bank makes decisions the way she does. I found her completely unconvincing, I am pretty sure Beha knows less about the world of finance than about journalism, higher ed, publishing, and baseball. Kit's story was more jarring than it might otherwise have been because the book's other characters' lives existed in those other realms and they felt real, felt like people I have known. Kit is such an important part of the book that I took a star for that. This was a high 4. A pure escape into a complicated messy group of people in a world that eschews the life-giving beauty of surprises and things inexplicable in favor of the false certainty of statistical analysis. This is a world that does not allow its celebrities or demi-celebrities a single error. preferring to see the world in black and white. exalting at the fleeting pleasure of burning people at the stake rather than the subtle long-term pleasure of a redemption arc. It makes for a story that is very modern, and also nostalgic in a way that doesn't make me want to vomit (I am not a nostalgic person at all, but I miss the hell out of uncertainty and second chances.) A great read.
September 27, 2020
From the National Book Award longlist, this is a big, post-9/11, NYC novel with more than half a dozen POV characters and nearly as many major motifs/themes. Not everything works, but Beha is editor of Harper’s, and has the writing chops and knowledge of the milieu to make this a quick, entertaining read, even at 500+ pages. Expert audiobook narration by Jim Frangione.
October 6, 2020
Couldn't put it down. I love a good book set in NYC with a big cast of complicated characters. There's certainly some baseball in this book, but less than I had expected. Basically--a stats guy (probably based off Nate Silver) and his wife move to NYC and get involved with a disgraced older sports/politics writer and his family. Hijinks ensue from there.
September 10, 2021
this book has EVERYTHING: baseball, statistics, white collar crime, the iraq war, the 2008 financial crisis, infidelity, religion, an extremely minor character named Kara, and musings on the end. wow! fucking loved this! since picking this up it has consumed me, every idle thought I had was about this book, can’t explain why. unfortunately I did read this book bc of a MAN shout out max kerman I’m obsessed w you and you did not lead me astray. ugh!
this was the longest book I’ve read in awhile which was nice bc I couldn’t finish it all at once but also frustrating bc I couldn’t finish it all at once and sometimes I read things that FELT like callbacks but I couldn’t always prove it to myself. anyways I found the section titles to be immaculate, the connections between characters and plot lines to be completely enthralling, and the focus on systems of belief to be engaging. to me this was a book about how we organize our lives, around quantitative proof? money? god? baseball? family? marriage? your psychic who validates you? and in a way aren’t all those things the same at the core of it? I guess it’s also a book about being your own worst enemy in ways that are hard for you to see until it’s too late. or maybe it’s not too late!
anyways this was basically the perfect book for me and I am so so so glad to have read it.
this was the longest book I’ve read in awhile which was nice bc I couldn’t finish it all at once but also frustrating bc I couldn’t finish it all at once and sometimes I read things that FELT like callbacks but I couldn’t always prove it to myself. anyways I found the section titles to be immaculate, the connections between characters and plot lines to be completely enthralling, and the focus on systems of belief to be engaging. to me this was a book about how we organize our lives, around quantitative proof? money? god? baseball? family? marriage? your psychic who validates you? and in a way aren’t all those things the same at the core of it? I guess it’s also a book about being your own worst enemy in ways that are hard for you to see until it’s too late. or maybe it’s not too late!
anyways this was basically the perfect book for me and I am so so so glad to have read it.
January 31, 2021
Oh I loved this book—-reminded me of The Art of Fielding, another all time fave. A story that follows all these connected characters and I genuinely cared about all of them. Def recommend
June 3, 2020
The title of Beha’s character-driven novel comes from one of Bill James’ baseball metrics. This index measures the various ways a pitcher can sabotage himself by committing unforced errors. Not only is it a wonderfully clever title, but it also captures the essence of the story. Beha succeeds in creating a superb ensemble of interesting and nuanced characters, each of whom seems to be a master of self-sabotage. In considering them, the Rolling Stones lyric on wants and needs comes to mind (i.e., “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you just might find you get what you need.”) You find yourself liking them all and hoping they get what they want, but in your heart, you know they might just get what they need.
Frank once was a successful writer who has a need to be loved and admired. After achieving success from his witty baseball writings, he has convinced himself that he as a “big book” in him but spends most of his time just drinking. His daughter, Margo, has aspirations of being a poet but spends most of her energy chasing a married writer dispatched to interview Frank. Kit, Frank’s wife, is retired from a Wall Street firm she inherited from her father. He probably would have preferred a son as his heir, but he somewhat misogynistically groomed Kit for the job. She mismanages the family’s finances and tries to recover with an insider trading deal. Their son, Ed, wants more out of life than he sees his parents achieved. He needs a noble cause instead of his dull marketing job and the life of leisure and wealth his family has. His naïve first attempt at nobility comes by joining the Army after 911. Yet after a couple of tours in war zones, he returns disillusioned by that. Instead, he drifts into helping a demented old man preach about the end of the world while seeking a career as an EMT. Sam Waxworth, “a young man from the provinces” (i.e., Madison, WI) arrives in NYC after achieving some notoriety by accurately predicting an election outcome. He wants to achieve success as a writer but is immediately sidetracked by the relentless demands of his job and by Margo. Sam has a simple-minded belief that data and statistics hold all of the secrets of the universe. His wife, Lucy, is a small-town girl with unpretentious needs revolving around family ties. She wants nothing more than to return to Madison. However, Sam’s infidelity and a mysterious disease shake her core world view.
Beha masterfully manages his third person narrative by continuously switching perspectives between his characters. This can be a little unsettling primarily because he does not adhere to a linear timeline. Instead, he has a penchant for revealing important events and facts out of the blue and later returning to explain them in subsequent scenes. His strength is clearly dialogue, especially the banter between Margo and Sam on facts vs. art and that between Sam and Frank about what is really important about baseball.
This is definitely an entertaining read by an accomplished writer who has a nuanced view of life in America. He sees things with a clear eye but also with considerable empathy.
Frank once was a successful writer who has a need to be loved and admired. After achieving success from his witty baseball writings, he has convinced himself that he as a “big book” in him but spends most of his time just drinking. His daughter, Margo, has aspirations of being a poet but spends most of her energy chasing a married writer dispatched to interview Frank. Kit, Frank’s wife, is retired from a Wall Street firm she inherited from her father. He probably would have preferred a son as his heir, but he somewhat misogynistically groomed Kit for the job. She mismanages the family’s finances and tries to recover with an insider trading deal. Their son, Ed, wants more out of life than he sees his parents achieved. He needs a noble cause instead of his dull marketing job and the life of leisure and wealth his family has. His naïve first attempt at nobility comes by joining the Army after 911. Yet after a couple of tours in war zones, he returns disillusioned by that. Instead, he drifts into helping a demented old man preach about the end of the world while seeking a career as an EMT. Sam Waxworth, “a young man from the provinces” (i.e., Madison, WI) arrives in NYC after achieving some notoriety by accurately predicting an election outcome. He wants to achieve success as a writer but is immediately sidetracked by the relentless demands of his job and by Margo. Sam has a simple-minded belief that data and statistics hold all of the secrets of the universe. His wife, Lucy, is a small-town girl with unpretentious needs revolving around family ties. She wants nothing more than to return to Madison. However, Sam’s infidelity and a mysterious disease shake her core world view.
Beha masterfully manages his third person narrative by continuously switching perspectives between his characters. This can be a little unsettling primarily because he does not adhere to a linear timeline. Instead, he has a penchant for revealing important events and facts out of the blue and later returning to explain them in subsequent scenes. His strength is clearly dialogue, especially the banter between Margo and Sam on facts vs. art and that between Sam and Frank about what is really important about baseball.
This is definitely an entertaining read by an accomplished writer who has a nuanced view of life in America. He sees things with a clear eye but also with considerable empathy.
December 22, 2020
Hmmm. Well plotted. Some have said it could have used some slimming down. On the contrary I think it was tight. Others have also said it was messy. I can’t agree. Every event unfolds logically, in the only order it could take. The book puts a rather macabre twist on the question “are you going to happen to life or let life happen to you?” Macabre because, in Beha’s world, you’ll fall either way. This is a good book. I think it deserves the recognition it is getting. Speaking of recognition, Beha blurbed/did a write up in Harper’s (for which he is the editor) on the new NYRB publications of The Recognitions and JR. You can tell from The Index that Gaddis has made an impression on Beha. Having read JR a few months ago, I felt as if Gaddis’ treatment of his characters was reappropriated (perhaps unconsciously) by Beha in The Index. That’s all in terms of similarities. That said, style snobs beware: you will not find baroque prose here. You will find a clean line like that of the editor William Maxwell with the intent of moving the story forward. Nothing else. Point being to not notice the prose. For the most part, that is the case. Only a handful of sentences threw me off or struck me as poorly worded. I should mention something about the characters not being interesting/likable with the exception of two sometimes three. In fact, a few of the characters were not well enough defined/distinguished from other characters in the story. Had you exchanged their story lines from part one to part two, it’s possible it could have gone without notice to the reader, as they were just too damn similar. Again, I can see why this book has received the recognition that it has. I think it deserves it. Still, it didn’t quite do it for me.
February 27, 2021
If there was ever book that was written for a focus group of me, this would be it. I was the most into by how well the sprawl of the book came together in the last 100ish pages
May 12, 2020
I liked this much more than other recent TH fiction. There’s a sense of post-9/11 gloom that’s well rendered against the growing financial crisis that followed. Although initially I thought there were too many characters to devote attention to, each earns the right amount of empathy (or apathy) and ultimately receive fitting developments. The timeline toward the end got crowded: some events delivered out of order or repeated from multiple perspectives, but the cultural temperate is right on.
May 27, 2020
Cared a lot about the fate of each character, which is tough to pull off in a big ensemble piece like this.
And I was caught in the push and pull of wanting to spend every free second reading this and also not wanting it to end.
And I was caught in the push and pull of wanting to spend every free second reading this and also not wanting it to end.
October 13, 2020
What a story!! It was almost a little too carefully crafted and plotted. I wanted some of the moments to come more fully alive, because there is a lot of good in here, and I wanted to FEEL it. Overall, a great read.
June 6, 2021
Wow! Felt a little like 7 novels in one but amazing!
June 1, 2020
For the most part, the book was OK. I think the general plot was the only thing getting me to finish the book. I really only liked Lucy's arch. I like Beha's take on a love triangle/affair story. It was probably the only story line that I thought really made sense.
The weakest parts are when Beha tries to make his characters speak for more than a few sentences. Be it Waxworth or Frank, they're thoughts on baseball/stats/etc...were tired. Plus, the trope of a numbers guy being basically devoid of feeling is lazy. Also, how creative that the writer is an alcoholic!
The plot takes place in NYC, but it didn't really add to anything. Might as well have been in Boston or Connecticut. They talk of Madison, but didn't really capture much of Madison besides Lucy's parents being open-minded liberals. Baseball makes an appearance in the book, for no real reason. The element of financial crimes didn't really add to anything, and the sting operation for insider trading doesn't seem realistic to me.
For Beha being an editor, it was kind of disappointing to see two obvious typos (six feet six inches, "the" instead of "they"). But that is forgivable. But as an employee of MLB, former trader, Badger, and math major, I felt no real connection to this book.
The writing was very good, and the plot kept going. But the book kind of flopped, much liked everybody's lives (except Lucy, go Lucy) in this story.
The weakest parts are when Beha tries to make his characters speak for more than a few sentences. Be it Waxworth or Frank, they're thoughts on baseball/stats/etc...were tired. Plus, the trope of a numbers guy being basically devoid of feeling is lazy. Also, how creative that the writer is an alcoholic!
The plot takes place in NYC, but it didn't really add to anything. Might as well have been in Boston or Connecticut. They talk of Madison, but didn't really capture much of Madison besides Lucy's parents being open-minded liberals. Baseball makes an appearance in the book, for no real reason. The element of financial crimes didn't really add to anything, and the sting operation for insider trading doesn't seem realistic to me.
For Beha being an editor, it was kind of disappointing to see two obvious typos (six feet six inches, "the" instead of "they"). But that is forgivable. But as an employee of MLB, former trader, Badger, and math major, I felt no real connection to this book.
The writing was very good, and the plot kept going. But the book kind of flopped, much liked everybody's lives (except Lucy, go Lucy) in this story.
December 27, 2020
A big NYC novel that covers a lot of ground: baseball, ambition, insider trading, the writing life, affluence and privilege, God and religion—I guess that’s enough to get started with. This is the kind of novel I seem to like best, that is, a story with a lot of moving parts told in a straightforward fashion, perhaps with the focus shifting between characters but unfolding chronologically. By gum, there are even quotation marks around the dialogue—how very novel these days! The events take place in 2009, as the effects of the financial crash continue to ripple outward. The Doyles seem to be a blessed family, with Frank a longtime fixture at the Herald, writing on the opinion pages about baseball and politics, and Kit ably helming her third-generation family-run investment firm, son Edward safely returned from a stint in the armed forces and daughter Margo returned from graduate school to the family home to ponder whether she really wants to enter academia. Also on hand is Justin Price, who was given a leg up as a young black kid by a Kit Doyle charity, became very much part of the family as Edward’s bestie and who went on as an adult to earn unbelievable amounts of money as a trader. Also enter Sam Waxworth, a young man from the Midwest who, as a software engineer, had created an eerily prescient “political projection system [that] had correctly predicted the exact count of the electoral college vote and the outcome of every Senate, House and gubernatorial race.” Naturally, that garnered a lot of attention, and the ambitious Sam jumps at a job offer to write for a New York publication and website. His first assignment: interview Frank Doyle, who has lately hugely disgraced himself when he made a racist “joke” on a national baseball broadcast.
The “index” of the title comes from baseball and is an actual statistic: “It adds up balks, hit batsmen, wild pitches, errors—all the things a pitcher does that are entirely in his control, that don’t require the batter to do anything at all. The Index of Self-Destructive Acts.” It serves as an elegant metaphor, as every major character makes a choice or does something that has a catastrophic, upending effect on their life.
Very enjoyable read.
The “index” of the title comes from baseball and is an actual statistic: “It adds up balks, hit batsmen, wild pitches, errors—all the things a pitcher does that are entirely in his control, that don’t require the batter to do anything at all. The Index of Self-Destructive Acts.” It serves as an elegant metaphor, as every major character makes a choice or does something that has a catastrophic, upending effect on their life.
Very enjoyable read.
May 6, 2020
Thank you to NetGalley and W.W. Norton & Company for allowing me to read the e-ARC of The Index of Self-Destructive Acts by Christopher R. Beha. To extend the baseball motif, this story had a bit of a slow wind-up, but in the end, the author hit this one out of the park! This is a very well-written and well-plotted story. Stats reporter Sam Weatherwax (and his black-and-white viewpoint) first becomes involved with the Doyle family when he conducts an interview concerning formerly loved opinion writer Frank's "fall from grace." Through third-person narration, chapter viewpoints change throughout; like Sam, all characters are somehow connected to Frank and Kit Doyle and their family. Frank is an unhealthy alcoholic academic whose racist remarks at a ballgame cause him to lose his career. Frank's ambitious wife Kit has the main responsibility of running the household and trying keep up the facade that all is well with their wealth and assets. Their children Eddie (recently returned from active duty in the army) and Margo (who is spending time at home following her outing of her professor's inappropriate conduct) are also trying to "figure things out." Eddie's childhood friend Justin, Sam's wife Lucy, prognosticator Herman Nash, and clairvoyant Mrs. Clara Lune round out the cast of characters. True to Nash's claims, these characters' worlds do seem to be ending, and each person scrambles in different directions to find his or her way.
May 22, 2020
2.5
Unnecessarily long. I enjoyed the characters and the plot...there was too much of both.
Really enjoyed the first 1/2... but the slow pace had me skimming the rest of the book for resolution’s sake.
Unnecessarily long. I enjoyed the characters and the plot...there was too much of both.
Really enjoyed the first 1/2... but the slow pace had me skimming the rest of the book for resolution’s sake.
November 30, 2020
I'm a sucker for a "rich NYC family has more problems than you might guess" novel, and this is definitely one of the better ones of that ilk. Beha writes his female characters impressively well, and totally sticks the landing here.
March 21, 2021
The highs on this one are very high.
September 18, 2022
New novel, 2020, The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, ranging from politics to baseball to mortality and sexuality, and what else is there? Family life, and this is also there, a work that gains momentum as it sweeps along, with an eloquent final page.
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo
April 29, 2021
i mean, it kept me interested. seemed like a tv show you watch while in a hotel room and for some reason you can't get any other channel and the show is not bad, per se, but interesting enough to keep you invested in staying with it. i liked the variety of characters and how they were all connected. the vibe just seemed 'ho hum' but i enjoyed it. i think this review isn't making much sense. sorry.
July 19, 2022
I couldn't finish it, there were too many baseball references
January 25, 2024
4.5. Wow. What a book. So dense but I raced through it. Just an expert examination of these mostly unlikable, misguided characters that somehow fit together as one cohesive story. There was something a bit punitive about how they all “met their end,” which is why Lucy’s small storyline was euphorically satisfying. Great book.
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