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About the Author

Includes the name: Christopher R. Beha

Works by Christopher Beha

Associated Works

The Writer's Notebook II: Craft Essays from Tin House (2012) — Contributor — 38 copies

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Common Knowledge

Birthdate
1979
Gender
male
Nationality
USA
Education
Princeton University
New School for Social Research
Occupations
editor
Organizations
Harper's Magazine

Members

Reviews

Christopher Beha is a smart guy and a talented novelist, but I just got tired of him talking about his characters' bodily functions. Life is too short to waste any more time reading this book.
 
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cpg | 5 other reviews | Jun 2, 2023 |
A perfect summer book to read about reality television. Unfortunately while the book is fiction it may as well be a documentary of TV, social media, and celebrity in 2014, and was completely believable. The book is well written and quite funny.
 
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zmagic69 | 6 other reviews | Mar 31, 2023 |
I didn't really feel like this was a chronicle of his journey as much as it was a summary of the books he read. If I had wanted to read that I would have either read the books myself or read the Cliff Notes version of the book.
 
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WellReadSoutherner | 12 other reviews | Apr 6, 2022 |
In our lifetimes, each and every one of us has committed a self-destructive act. In fact, in all probability, we’ve committed many. Too many to count, in fact.
A self-destructive act is an action a person takes which irrevocably alters his life. Some acts are simple carelessness or even more innocent accidents: leaving a kettle on the flames, backing up the car too rapidly, putting your hand into boiling water. Others are actions that seemed OK at the time but later turned out very badly. Some acts have immediate consequences, others fester for years before finally coming home to roust.
Christopher Beha’s novel covers most of these kinds of acts. People who are neither good nor bad do things that destroy their lives and sometimes the lives of others. They were not intentional harms delivered from malice, simply acts that were perhaps out of character yet had lasting and serious impacts. For example, in this book, a minor character named Justin does something he knows is unethical to help an old friend, yet intention does not matter; the result does. But this act of generous good intent comes after years of much more selfishly motivated destructive acts.
The Index of Self-Destructive Acts includes a cast of characters whose actions have significant negative consequences, usually upon both themselves and upon others.
The story begins by introducing a self-aggrandizing, character whose smug self-centeredness later leads to his own self-destruction, but not until he interacts with numerous other characters who each engage in self-destructive behaviors of their own.
The writer, Sam Waxman, achieves fame by correctly forecasting the outcomes of elections with unerring accuracy. His success leads him to be offered a job in New York City, half a country away from his home in Madison, Wisconsin. He ignores the interests of his wife, Lucy, accepts the job, and takes himself to New York. Lucy stays behind.
The offer comes from a famous and renowned magazine which for 160 years has had the full trust of its reading public.
Sam is assigned to interview a writer who had been legendary among baseball fans until he committed his own self-destructive act. He made racist remarks on national TV when he was intoxicated. The baseball writer, Frank Doyle, is an alcoholic and the husband of a wealthy wife whose family has gained wealth through its investment strategies. They have a daughter, Margo, and son, Edward, who also figure prominently in the story and who each commit their own acts of self-destruction.
The plot is long, and involved, but is an insightful look into the psychology of human beings and how that psychology governs our lives.
Good novels often revolve around human psychology and its impact, and this novel certainly falls into the company of other good novels whose fictional characters tell us so much about ourselves and about our own behaviors.
The Index of Self-Destructive Acts presents few likable characters, making it perhaps less enjoyable than people who rate books based on how much they like them would want. But for people who look for more substance in a novel, this is a good place to go.
… (more)
 
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PaulLoesch | 5 other reviews | Apr 2, 2022 |

Awards

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Statistics

Works
5
Also by
1
Members
808
Popularity
#31,571
Rating
½ 3.6
Reviews
38
ISBNs
20
Languages
1

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