SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD A NEW YORK TIMES Selection for BEST 10 BOOKS OF THE YEARA WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK A PICK FOR THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY’S 2018 BEST BOOKSTHE PERFECT HOLIDAY GIFT FOR READERS“A page turner…An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it’s like to live during times of crisis. “—The New York Times Book Review A dazzling new novel of … New York Times Book Review
A dazzling new novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris, by the acclaimed author Rebecca Makkai
In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister.
Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.
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The Great Believers kept me up reading late into the night, and I’d wake up thinking about Makkai’s vibrant, complex, and deeply human characters. This is an immersive, heartbreaking novel — I loved it.
I’m not sure I even want to review this book, because I can’t really put into words how shook (in a good way!) I feel after reading it. I’ve of course seen movies and documentaries about the AIDS crisis, but for some reason, Makkai’s story stuck with me in ways that other AIDS stories have not. Perhaps it’s because I live in the Chicago neighborhood where this book is set — the characters walk down streets I walk down every single day.
Even if you don’t live in Chicago, though, I recommend picking up this book. It’s haunting and tragic, while still being immensely relatable and even funny at times.
A stunning achievement that truly lives up to the hype. Her extensive research into the 80s AIDS epidemic in Chicago is obviously the story behind the story, but this book doesn’t feel researched as much as lived-in. Makkai’s characters live and breathe — and die, and mourn, and fall, and rise — in ways that will stay with you for a long, long time.
I loved the writing in this book and the character development. TGB tells an important story about a period in our recent history that we would do well to remember.
Probably the best book I’ve read this year. Poignant, moving, historical and full of wisdom, laughter, and tears…this is what a good novel should be.
I am writing this review a day after those twelve Thai boys were rescued from an underwater cave. A riveting story that captured everyone’s attention.
One of the scenes from this epic novel takes place on the day the Challenger Space Shuttle crashed killing everyone on board. That was also a story that got everyone’s attention.
This is an important novel. A great novel. It has been reviewed by everyone. I don’t think I can improve on Michael Cunningham’s review in the NY Times. I can offer my thoughts and feelings as a straight white male who was 34 in 1985 – roughly the same age as Makkai’s protagonist, Yale Tishman. And I was living in the same city – Chicago.
I remember clearly where I was when the Challenger crashed. And I was aware of the AIDS epidemic – everyone was – but that was something happening to other people, and they lived someplace else and anyways I was busy living my life. It is painful and shameful to admit that.
So Makkai has told this great story. It’s tragic but not all gloom and doom. It is a seriously compelling page turner, with acts of bravery, devotion and love. There is a lot of love in this book. And the characters – Yale, Charlie, Fiona – and a raft of others – are heartbreakingly real. Late in the book, when one of the characters learns he has the virus there is an entire chapter of his observations on all the things he had imagined for his life that would never be. Like a 25th high school reunion.
As I close in on my 50th high school reunion I think about that. A lot.
I read this novel over the Thanksgiving weekend, a time of year when I’m always sentimental about something or other, not necessarily in a good way, generally involving the 1970s or 80s. I’m a couple of years too young to have been very conscious of the AIDS epidemic, oblivious in high school for the early years, in a secluded bubble of college during the era of ACT-UP and increasing national awareness. By the time I moved back to New York in 1989, everyone was hyper-conscious that sex with anyone could be lethal. Yet I didn’t know a single person who got sick.
I’m lucky to have missed the experience of friends dying all around me, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, all around me. And THE GREAT BELIEVERS shone a bright light on my increasingly dim memories of the “silence = death” T-shirts, the grim vigil that was St. Vincent’s Hospital, the marches and protests, the vitriol at Mayor Ed Koch. This book is set mostly in Chicago, so the touchstones are different from my memories of the ’80s. But it’s a beautiful book, and it’s absolutely heartbreaking.
This novel blew me away. Blew. Me. Away. The two storylines–of Yale in 1980s Chicago, surrounded by the AIDS epidemic and of Fiona in 2015 searching for her missing daughter in Paris–were both so captivating that I’d be disappointed at the end of a chapter because I’d want more of his/her story, only to be thrust into the next one and not wanting that one to end either.
Perhaps some of my adoration of this novel is because the 1980s were my formative years, and I spent much of the early ’90s volunteering with Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York City. The novel so well touched on the issues (without ever making them seem like Issues with a capital I), weaving them into the story, that it evoked emotions in me that haven’t surfaced in years.
This novel moved me. I needed to see how it ended but I so didn’t want it to end, and the final image is one that haunts. This novel is superb.
This book was a stark reminder of the scourge of AIDS in the eighties in Chicago, switching back and for from the point of view of one young gay man in 1985 and the sister of another in 2015. It was exquisitely written, although I was not aware of that as I was reading (the writing should be and was invisible). The stories were personal, told with empathy but no drama. These characters could have been in any book with any plot; this one happened to be about the decimation of an entire generation of young people by an out-of-control disease long before science got a handle on it. I fell in love with the main character, Yale, and girl, Fiona, whose life was inextricably tied to the people she loved, as she watched them die, one after another. The book was tragic, unforgettable, and eye-opening. I couldn’t stop reading until the very last page.
Since this was published in 2018, there’s no need to recite the plot. Just to say THIS IS ONE GREAT BOOK! So heartfelt, so nuanced, so well-written with both lyrical passages that break your heart, historical context that helps you understand the 1980’s and the AIDS crisis in America, a love letter to the great cities of Chicago and Paris, and a bunch of true-to-life human beings it was my great honor to spend time with. If you never read this, do so now. It sat on my TBR shelf for years – not sure why. But this is my nudge to you to pick it up and fall into its pages. Yes, it’s long. Yes, it’s dense. Yes, there is a large cast of characters. But it is worth it. A masterpiece.
This book is absolutely exquisite. Perfection.
This story gave an insight to the AIDS crisis of the 80’s that we thought we knew. There was so much more for those who lived it.
This book gives great insight into the onset of the AIDS pandemic through the eyes of people who lived and died during it.
A great recap of a terrible time for gay men in our history
A Highly Ambitious Tour de Force
A big, important subject requires an equally significant bookand Makkai delivers in spades with The Great Believers. She deftly manages a huge cast of characters, two time lines, a subplot to cleverly entwine both as well as the crash and burn of many relationships, as she spins her complex tale of senseless loss and multi-faceted grief. Having written a novel with many characters myself I’d love to have seen her whiteboard for the plotting of this intricate, yet easy-to-follow story. I came to this novel reluctantly, thinking it would be a heart-wrenching downer, and found myself unable to put it down, madly invested in the fates of the damaged Fiona and the doomed Yale. With The Great Believers Makkai has aimed for the stars, and if here and there she may underline her message a bit broader than necessary, we should all aspire so high. Bravo.
Shows a side of the AIDS pandemic that has rarely been exposed. How as nurtures, women, take on the caring, the battles, the emotional fight, tolls, that men fail. It’s a behind the scenes look at the strength and power of female.
A good look at the gay community in Chicago in the midst of the AIDS epidemic. I gained a profound understanding of what being gay meant at that time in history. I am glad that there are treatments that can help extend life and even cure that
terrible disease. I cannot empathize with the gay community but now have a clearer picture of what life is like for a gay person and definitely have deeper sense of their life style. Different but like in our nee for human connection.
This felt like a biography. The characters and their lives felt real. it makes the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic in its early days come alive. Highly recommend.
Having lived through the time period of the onset of AIDS in both NYC and LA it was interesting to get another big city’s perspective. I have given this book to several young gay men,including my son and his husband. I feel it is so important to understand just how far we have come as a society and to realize how far we still have to go. The characters and their plights were very real to me. This is a must read!
A very well-researched book about the gay community in Chicago and the appearance of AIDS. Another interesting side story is about a female artist who served as a model for other artists, some well-known, in the fabulous Paris of the 1920s. It weaves into the current story nicely. This is a most informative book, touching on the older generation who had to stay closeted and the newer one charting their own territory despite huge losses when the epidemic appeared on the scene.