My Review of Christopher Beha's The Index of Self-Destructive Acts

The American Interest has published my review of Christopher Beha's most recent novel. As readers of this blog might remember, I wrote about Beha's first novel, What Happened to Sophie Wilder, a long while back. Beha occupies an interesting space in the current conversation surrounding Catholic fiction. He seems to be a practicing Catholic, and his cast of characters (which are somewhat continguous throughout his three novels), attended a Catholic prep school in Manhattan and occupy a variety of spots on the practicing/fallen-away spectrum. In my review, I attempt to make the argument that The Index of Self-Destructive Acts is a kind of existentialist-Catholic novel, and to do so I draw upon Beha's recent essay on Soren Kierkegaard in Harper's (which he edits).