Status
Available
Collection
Publication
New York, New York : Viking, [2018]
Description
-- 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.… (more)
Media reviews
...there’s a lot going on in The Great Believers, and while Makkai doesn’t always manage to make all the plates spin perfectly, she remains thoughtful and consistent throughout about the importance of memory and legacy, and the pain that can come with survival.
Makkai finds surprising resonances across time and experience, offering a timely commentary on the price of memory and the role of art in securing legacies at risk of being lost.
“The Great Believers” offers a grand fusion of the past and the present, the public and the personal. It’s remarkably alive despite all the loss it encompasses. And it’s right on target in addressing how the things that the world throws us feel gratuitously out of step with the lives we
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User reviews
LibraryThing member lauralkeet
“The thing is,” Teddy said, “the disease itself feels like a judgment. We’ve all got a little Jesse Helms on our shoulder, right? If you got it from sleeping with a thousand guys, then it’s a judgment on your promiscuity. If you got it from sleeping with one guy once, that’s almost
Chicago, 1985: the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the United States. A group of friends are gathered to remember Nico, who recently died of the disease. It was a scary and confusing time. The virus came seemingly out of nowhere, its impact swift and fatal. Most government institutions, employers, and society as a whole shunned the gay community. With the exception of his younger sister Fiona, Nico’s family deserted him; his friends had to keep their grief private. Yale Tischman was one of Nico’s friends and remained close to Fiona after his death. Yale and his partner Charlie have been together, and monogamous, since before the virus became known, which gives them a sense of security. Yale works for an art gallery and is currently negotiating a complicated bequest of some paintings currently belonging to Fiona’s aunt. But the losses in Yale’s circle are only beginning.
Fast forward to 2015. Fiona runs an AIDS thrift shop and is trying to locate her estranged daughter Claire, believed to be in Paris with her young daughter. While staying with an old friend who had been part of the Chicago gay community 30 years earlier, Fiona begins to process her memories and how those times shaped her and affected her relationship with Claire.
Through alternating chapters, author Rebecca Makkai shows the devastating and far-reaching impact of the AIDS epidemic. She doesn’t hold back; her depiction of the confusion and silence surrounding the disease, the lack of treatment options, and the widespread stigma and fear is both realistic and emotional. While I was completely drawn into this book, I had to set it aside several times to process my feelings. This is a profound novel, highly recommended.
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worse, it’s like a judgment on all of us, like the act itself is the problem and not the number of times you did it. And if you got it because you thought you couldn’t, it’s a judgment on your hubris. And if you got it because you knew you could and you didn’t care, it’s a judgment on how much you hate yourself.”Chicago, 1985: the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the United States. A group of friends are gathered to remember Nico, who recently died of the disease. It was a scary and confusing time. The virus came seemingly out of nowhere, its impact swift and fatal. Most government institutions, employers, and society as a whole shunned the gay community. With the exception of his younger sister Fiona, Nico’s family deserted him; his friends had to keep their grief private. Yale Tischman was one of Nico’s friends and remained close to Fiona after his death. Yale and his partner Charlie have been together, and monogamous, since before the virus became known, which gives them a sense of security. Yale works for an art gallery and is currently negotiating a complicated bequest of some paintings currently belonging to Fiona’s aunt. But the losses in Yale’s circle are only beginning.
Fast forward to 2015. Fiona runs an AIDS thrift shop and is trying to locate her estranged daughter Claire, believed to be in Paris with her young daughter. While staying with an old friend who had been part of the Chicago gay community 30 years earlier, Fiona begins to process her memories and how those times shaped her and affected her relationship with Claire.
Through alternating chapters, author Rebecca Makkai shows the devastating and far-reaching impact of the AIDS epidemic. She doesn’t hold back; her depiction of the confusion and silence surrounding the disease, the lack of treatment options, and the widespread stigma and fear is both realistic and emotional. While I was completely drawn into this book, I had to set it aside several times to process my feelings. This is a profound novel, highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member richardderus
PEARL RULED @ p.148
What, I hear you thinking, is wrong with this old man? DNF a five-star read? Five-star a DNF? ::side-eye::
The fact is that I lived this story. I lost the love of my life to AIDS, and attended far too many funerals and memorial services before I was 30. So I really just can't
The prose is exemplary in its economy and precision, both qualities I admire greatly. Yale came fully into his manhood for me when, on the last page I read, he reflected:
...even if the world wasn't always a good place, he reminded himself that he could trust his perceptions now. Things were so often exactly what they seemed to be.
Precisely, Yale, they so often are and one is always wise to remember that fact. Occam proposed his razor for a reason. It's an incisive (haw) insight.
So while I fully support the praisemongers in their efforts to convince others to read this book, I am not possessed of the emotional horsepower to do it myself. I encourage y'all to take up the challenge and read it, tout de suite, and predict most will come away with a moving and fulfilling experience.
What, I hear you thinking, is wrong with this old man? DNF a five-star read? Five-star a DNF? ::side-eye::
The fact is that I lived this story. I lost the love of my life to AIDS, and attended far too many funerals and memorial services before I was 30. So I really just can't
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finish the book. I am not up for those wounding memories to be poked with a stick.The prose is exemplary in its economy and precision, both qualities I admire greatly. Yale came fully into his manhood for me when, on the last page I read, he reflected:
...even if the world wasn't always a good place, he reminded himself that he could trust his perceptions now. Things were so often exactly what they seemed to be.
Precisely, Yale, they so often are and one is always wise to remember that fact. Occam proposed his razor for a reason. It's an incisive (haw) insight.
So while I fully support the praisemongers in their efforts to convince others to read this book, I am not possessed of the emotional horsepower to do it myself. I encourage y'all to take up the challenge and read it, tout de suite, and predict most will come away with a moving and fulfilling experience.
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LibraryThing member ablachly
If you want to feel gutted by excellent literature, this is the book for you.
LibraryThing member japaul22
What a wonderful, wonderful book. Makkai has brought to life the tragedy, fear, and trauma of the AIDS crisis in 1980s Chicago. She does this through wonderfully real characters, the kind of characters who you think about and wonder what they are doing while you aren't reading the book. It's sad -
Makkai uses an alternating timeline, between 1985-90 and 2015, and sometimes these don't work for me, but here I thought it was perfect. Though I never wanted to leave the 1980s characters, flashing forward to 2015 helped put the crisis in perspective - sometimes deepening the sadness, sometimes showing the lasting trauma it cause for those who survived, and sometimes giving glimmers of hope.
Highly recommended - please give it a try!
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I rarely cry at books and couldn't contain it here - but it's so beautifully done that it isn't as depressing as it could be, somehow. Makkai uses an alternating timeline, between 1985-90 and 2015, and sometimes these don't work for me, but here I thought it was perfect. Though I never wanted to leave the 1980s characters, flashing forward to 2015 helped put the crisis in perspective - sometimes deepening the sadness, sometimes showing the lasting trauma it cause for those who survived, and sometimes giving glimmers of hope.
Highly recommended - please give it a try!
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LibraryThing member novelcommentary
It's been an interesting three weeks as I wound up reading two novels by Rebecca Makkai. Since I was down the shore, I needed a beach book so as to protect my iPad (kindle app) from the sand and surf. So I read paperback The Borrower while on beach .This was a pleasant almost cute book about a
In her most recent novel, The Great Believers, Makkai takes on much heftier plot lines. The book is told in alternating chapters between the mid eighties depiction of the AIDS epidemic in the Chicago gay community, and in 2015 where a mother searches for her estranged daughter in Paris. The connection is that Fiona, the mother, was great friends with Yale Tishman, thirty years ago. She was in Chicago then when her brother Nico died and when all his friends starting dying around her. She cared for them in their waning days as insurance denied the necessary drugs and the country turned a blind eye. Through Yale's story, Makkai details the life of these men, describing the difference of the time then when a fixable thing, like cheating in a relationship, something that could be forgiven and fixed, now becomes an atom bomb of possible death. How can that much anger be fixed. Makkai compares these men to the lost generation of Fitzgerald whose quote is the source for the title: "We were the great believers....I have never cared for any men as much as for these who felt the first springs when I did, and saw death ahead, and were reprieved—and who now walk the long stormy summer.”
In a clever plot connection, Makkai uses the story of Fiona's Great Aunt Nora, whose personal art collection from her modeling days in Paris is being bequeathed to the Northwester art gallery that Yale works for. It was Fiona's advice that Nora contact him. This allows the reader to enjoy delving into the art world of Modigliani and Foujita. This is the greatest feature about using the kindle app on the iPad ( attention fellow readers) a simple touch on the screen allows you to shoot to Google and see the artwork and read the history of these mentioned artists. This allows you to interact more and learn more about the research work that the author put into her story.
The Great Believers is a well constructed important book. Though I liked the charming narrative of The Borrower, I felt The Great Believers to be an important, more mature work of fine fiction. I would recommend both.
From Nyt
"an absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it’s like to live during times of crisis. And who among us believes that, at any point in the near future, we’ll cease living in times of crisis, whatever form they may take?"
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children's librarian whose favorite customer is a ten year old reading prodigy. When it appears that his parents are sending him to a gay conversation camp, she takes it upon herself to try to save him. It's debatable who kidnaps whom but their adventure to Chicago and then New England will help both get a better understanding of their future. The book is certainly a testament to favorites of children's literature and the characters are quirky and likable. Also the ending is satisfying, leading to a new idea for classifying library books.In her most recent novel, The Great Believers, Makkai takes on much heftier plot lines. The book is told in alternating chapters between the mid eighties depiction of the AIDS epidemic in the Chicago gay community, and in 2015 where a mother searches for her estranged daughter in Paris. The connection is that Fiona, the mother, was great friends with Yale Tishman, thirty years ago. She was in Chicago then when her brother Nico died and when all his friends starting dying around her. She cared for them in their waning days as insurance denied the necessary drugs and the country turned a blind eye. Through Yale's story, Makkai details the life of these men, describing the difference of the time then when a fixable thing, like cheating in a relationship, something that could be forgiven and fixed, now becomes an atom bomb of possible death. How can that much anger be fixed. Makkai compares these men to the lost generation of Fitzgerald whose quote is the source for the title: "We were the great believers....I have never cared for any men as much as for these who felt the first springs when I did, and saw death ahead, and were reprieved—and who now walk the long stormy summer.”
In a clever plot connection, Makkai uses the story of Fiona's Great Aunt Nora, whose personal art collection from her modeling days in Paris is being bequeathed to the Northwester art gallery that Yale works for. It was Fiona's advice that Nora contact him. This allows the reader to enjoy delving into the art world of Modigliani and Foujita. This is the greatest feature about using the kindle app on the iPad ( attention fellow readers) a simple touch on the screen allows you to shoot to Google and see the artwork and read the history of these mentioned artists. This allows you to interact more and learn more about the research work that the author put into her story.
The Great Believers is a well constructed important book. Though I liked the charming narrative of The Borrower, I felt The Great Believers to be an important, more mature work of fine fiction. I would recommend both.
From Nyt
"an absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it’s like to live during times of crisis. And who among us believes that, at any point in the near future, we’ll cease living in times of crisis, whatever form they may take?"
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LibraryThing member jphamilton
The Great Believers is a memorable novel, for both the brutal times it portrayed in Chicago, and the beautifully drawn characters it introduced. It had two timelines, one from the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, as well as a follow-up of some of the characters in 2015. It was a very powerful telling of
Adding another fascinating 1980s storyline, Yale and his friend Fiona find themselves central to discovering a major collection of 1920s Parisian art—possibly worth millions—hidden away with Nora (Fiona’s aunt), an elderly lady in Michigan. In the Paris of the twenties, Nora worked as a model for Amedeo Modigliani, Fernand Léger, and Tsuguharu Foujita, among others, and her payment was an occasional piece of art by the then struggling artists.
Yale works for a gallery at Northwestern University and this find could (if authentic) put them on the map. Using the Fiona connection, Yale’s team works with the generous Nora, and tries to avoid the rather hostile heirs. A curious part of the story is that there are a few simple works by a completely unknown artist (Ranko Novak) that Nora insists be displayed in any exhibition of these artists. Sadly, by the time the works are exhibited, Nora has died, and Yale—who had promised that Nora’s love Novak would be included—has been removed from the project.
The 80s crisis took a serious toll on the relationship between Yale and his lover Charlie, who worked an independent newspaper, as well as Fiona and her estranged daughter Claire. Fiona becomes more central to the 2015 story, as she returns to Paris to search for the lost Claire, who had joined a cult, and then moved on.
It will be a rare person who can read this book without remembering the anger, despair, fear, and ignorance of those times. The book is difficult to read at times, but it is stunning, and you’ll carry its story and characters with you for some time.
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the loves and many losses of the book’s characters in the eighties, and the desperate and sharply divided politics of those times. It’s a very tough book to read at times, as it seems that the characters were always close to losing someone else. Adding another fascinating 1980s storyline, Yale and his friend Fiona find themselves central to discovering a major collection of 1920s Parisian art—possibly worth millions—hidden away with Nora (Fiona’s aunt), an elderly lady in Michigan. In the Paris of the twenties, Nora worked as a model for Amedeo Modigliani, Fernand Léger, and Tsuguharu Foujita, among others, and her payment was an occasional piece of art by the then struggling artists.
Yale works for a gallery at Northwestern University and this find could (if authentic) put them on the map. Using the Fiona connection, Yale’s team works with the generous Nora, and tries to avoid the rather hostile heirs. A curious part of the story is that there are a few simple works by a completely unknown artist (Ranko Novak) that Nora insists be displayed in any exhibition of these artists. Sadly, by the time the works are exhibited, Nora has died, and Yale—who had promised that Nora’s love Novak would be included—has been removed from the project.
The 80s crisis took a serious toll on the relationship between Yale and his lover Charlie, who worked an independent newspaper, as well as Fiona and her estranged daughter Claire. Fiona becomes more central to the 2015 story, as she returns to Paris to search for the lost Claire, who had joined a cult, and then moved on.
It will be a rare person who can read this book without remembering the anger, despair, fear, and ignorance of those times. The book is difficult to read at times, but it is stunning, and you’ll carry its story and characters with you for some time.
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LibraryThing member EBT1002
This brilliant novel is told in two tracks. In one track, it's 2015 and Fiona is heading to Paris to look for her adult daughter who has been "missing" for several years and was recently possibly spotted in You-tube video footage from a bridge along the Seine. In the second track, it's the
Makkai has done her research. I was living in Illinois in the 1980s and, while I did not live the story told through Yale's eyes very directly, I came out during that time and I was an activist in my university town a couple of hours south of Chicago. She got it right. Breathtakingly, agonizingly right. But beyond that, she tells a beautiful story. It's a story of chosen families and what happens when we manage the disappointment of our given families through bridge-burning. It's the story of maternal love in all its frail varieties and with its awesome power. It's a story of passion -- for friends, for lovers, for art, for justice -- and loyalty to all those same things, and what we will or won't sacrifice in pursuit of passion. It's the story of life's devastating shortness and the tragedy of any length of that life being wasted because of our illusion that it is long. Finally, it's the story of a very real community that experienced a very real tragedy in the latter part of the 20th century, a tragic history that is rarely understood from such an intimate perspective. The final scene is so vivid that I felt it in my gut and nearly wept for its beauty. Brava, Ms. Makkai!
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mid-1980s in Chicago. Yale is a young gay man watching his community rapidly falling victim to the AIDS virus which is still "new" and poorly understood; it is also poorly researched and devastatingly ignored by the American Medical Association and homophobic policy makers. Fiona is also a key character in Yale's story; she is the younger sister of Nico, one of Yale's friends already lost to the virus. Makkai has done her research. I was living in Illinois in the 1980s and, while I did not live the story told through Yale's eyes very directly, I came out during that time and I was an activist in my university town a couple of hours south of Chicago. She got it right. Breathtakingly, agonizingly right. But beyond that, she tells a beautiful story. It's a story of chosen families and what happens when we manage the disappointment of our given families through bridge-burning. It's the story of maternal love in all its frail varieties and with its awesome power. It's a story of passion -- for friends, for lovers, for art, for justice -- and loyalty to all those same things, and what we will or won't sacrifice in pursuit of passion. It's the story of life's devastating shortness and the tragedy of any length of that life being wasted because of our illusion that it is long. Finally, it's the story of a very real community that experienced a very real tragedy in the latter part of the 20th century, a tragic history that is rarely understood from such an intimate perspective. The final scene is so vivid that I felt it in my gut and nearly wept for its beauty. Brava, Ms. Makkai!
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LibraryThing member Beamis12
4.5 The story opens with the death of a young gay man, named Nico. Disowned by this family for his sexual preference, that is all but his younger sister, Fiona, who is with him until the end. This is her introduction into the gay community, a community that will embrace her as she embraces them. It
Maybe because it was set in Chicago, all places I've been, so could imagine this story visually.Belmont Rocks, Lincoln Park and the zoo, Halsted, and Ann Sathers restaurant, one of my favorites in the city. In the Seventies, I hung in Old Town with a group of friends, two were gay, a couple, Jimmy and Max, they were wonderful, don't know what happened to them. I got married, had children, lost touch. I loved this novel, could fully embrace and connect with the story, a story that takes the reader fully into this time period. The political ramifications of a government that was totally unconcerned, a public that turned their heads since this only affected gays, which proved not to be true. The insurance companies, and the way they fought not to pay claims, citing preexisting conditions, so that many died in Cook County hospital. Families, who cut their children off, many never speaking to them again.
We see the other side too, friends banding together, trying to be there for those who had nobody. A mother who stays with her son through this terrible time. So many of these characters we come to know intimately, especially Yale, who is our narrator along with Fiona. Their is a secondary plot in the eighties that concerns Fiona's aunt and some valuable artwork. It was a little drawn out but it does tie into the story and is something Yale is determined to complete. Yale's sees it as a honor to a love that never stopped. Northwestern and DePaul, places Yale works, DePaul a school my youngest daughter graduated from, know it well.
In the present Richard and his photographic exhibit will bring the novel full circle, giving the many who had died, once again a voice. Merging the past with the present.
This was Angela, Esil and my read for March. I liked this one more than they, found it both profound, touching and a story that needed to be told.
ARC from Edelweiss.
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is the eighties in Chicago, Boys town and the AIDS epidemic is in full swing. We meet many of these young men, so many whose families have cut them loose. See their fear, their sorrow as more die, or find out they have the virus. Fiona, is with many of them, caring for them when they cannot care for themselves. I can't imagine watching everyone you love die, and we see how this affects Fiona in her life a dual story line with the second in 2015 as Fiona searches for her own grown daughter. She finds Richard, a photographer, a survivor from the eighties, and there will be another to survive, a total surprise.. Reminded me a little of A Little Life, the scope, the friends, losing so much.Maybe because it was set in Chicago, all places I've been, so could imagine this story visually.Belmont Rocks, Lincoln Park and the zoo, Halsted, and Ann Sathers restaurant, one of my favorites in the city. In the Seventies, I hung in Old Town with a group of friends, two were gay, a couple, Jimmy and Max, they were wonderful, don't know what happened to them. I got married, had children, lost touch. I loved this novel, could fully embrace and connect with the story, a story that takes the reader fully into this time period. The political ramifications of a government that was totally unconcerned, a public that turned their heads since this only affected gays, which proved not to be true. The insurance companies, and the way they fought not to pay claims, citing preexisting conditions, so that many died in Cook County hospital. Families, who cut their children off, many never speaking to them again.
We see the other side too, friends banding together, trying to be there for those who had nobody. A mother who stays with her son through this terrible time. So many of these characters we come to know intimately, especially Yale, who is our narrator along with Fiona. Their is a secondary plot in the eighties that concerns Fiona's aunt and some valuable artwork. It was a little drawn out but it does tie into the story and is something Yale is determined to complete. Yale's sees it as a honor to a love that never stopped. Northwestern and DePaul, places Yale works, DePaul a school my youngest daughter graduated from, know it well.
In the present Richard and his photographic exhibit will bring the novel full circle, giving the many who had died, once again a voice. Merging the past with the present.
This was Angela, Esil and my read for March. I liked this one more than they, found it both profound, touching and a story that needed to be told.
ARC from Edelweiss.
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LibraryThing member over.the.edge
The Great Believers
By Rebecca Makkai
2018
Penguin
There are two alternative timelines in this exuberant, moving and fascinating novel that explores friendship, trust, AIDS, and love. Such a wonderful rich book, so very hard to read at some points. But so so good!
The story begins in the Mid 1980's in
The parallel storyline is 30 years later, when Nico's sister, Fiona returns to Chicago to try to find her daughter, who has joined a mysterious cult. Fiona stays with an old friend, Richard Campo, a photographer who grew popular in the 80's photographing this Chicago community affected by AIDS. This stirs memories for Fiona of her brother, and the many friends and lovers that have been lost to the disease, or labelled by it.
"The thing is, the disease itself feels like a judgement. We've all got a little Jesse Helms on our shoulder, right? If you got it from sleeping with a thousand guys, then it's a judgement on your promiscuity. If you got it from sleeping with one guy once, thats almost worse, it's like a judgement on all of us, like the act itself is the problem and not the number of times you did it. And if you got it because you thought you couldn't, it's a judgement on your hubris."
I really fell in love with Yale Tishman, the more I read the more I liked him. His partner, Charlie not so much. I also liked Julian and Fiona and Terrance.
I found this to be amazingly honest and accurate. It successfully takes you to that time period and the community of Chicago, as well as the emotion and environment surrounding this epidemic throughout the country. The politics of a government unconcerned because it was thought to affect only the gay community, turning its head, ignoring the facts. The insurance companies denying coverage because it is considered a pre-existing condition, forcing many to die in hospitals or hospices, as well as on the street. And families who refuse to accept gay members and kick them out on the street (as my parents and family did to me, something you never get over, in many ways.).
This is a book you really should read. It is so good, such a great story, and such wonderful characters. It's shortlisted for the National Book award 2018. Essential reading.
By Rebecca Makkai
2018
Penguin
There are two alternative timelines in this exuberant, moving and fascinating novel that explores friendship, trust, AIDS, and love. Such a wonderful rich book, so very hard to read at some points. But so so good!
The story begins in the Mid 1980's in
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Chicago, with the death of Nico, from AIDS. Abandoned by his family when diagnosed, only his sister supported him and his lifestyle, and was close to him and by his side until his death. Yale Tishman, one of Nico's friends, is a development director for Northwestern University's Briggs Gallery, when he inherits an art collection from the 1920's that include pieces that could be worth millions. But Yale is not sure of their authenticity, a process which takes time and money. Yale and his partner Charlie are going through a rough time and can not agree on their future or how to deal with what the paintings could be worth. Yale and Charlie are watching their friends get sick, living in fear and denial, then disappearing or dying.The parallel storyline is 30 years later, when Nico's sister, Fiona returns to Chicago to try to find her daughter, who has joined a mysterious cult. Fiona stays with an old friend, Richard Campo, a photographer who grew popular in the 80's photographing this Chicago community affected by AIDS. This stirs memories for Fiona of her brother, and the many friends and lovers that have been lost to the disease, or labelled by it.
"The thing is, the disease itself feels like a judgement. We've all got a little Jesse Helms on our shoulder, right? If you got it from sleeping with a thousand guys, then it's a judgement on your promiscuity. If you got it from sleeping with one guy once, thats almost worse, it's like a judgement on all of us, like the act itself is the problem and not the number of times you did it. And if you got it because you thought you couldn't, it's a judgement on your hubris."
I really fell in love with Yale Tishman, the more I read the more I liked him. His partner, Charlie not so much. I also liked Julian and Fiona and Terrance.
I found this to be amazingly honest and accurate. It successfully takes you to that time period and the community of Chicago, as well as the emotion and environment surrounding this epidemic throughout the country. The politics of a government unconcerned because it was thought to affect only the gay community, turning its head, ignoring the facts. The insurance companies denying coverage because it is considered a pre-existing condition, forcing many to die in hospitals or hospices, as well as on the street. And families who refuse to accept gay members and kick them out on the street (as my parents and family did to me, something you never get over, in many ways.).
This is a book you really should read. It is so good, such a great story, and such wonderful characters. It's shortlisted for the National Book award 2018. Essential reading.
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LibraryThing member BrandyLuther
One of the best books I've read. The characters have depth and strength. And life isn't always what you thought it would be. There are ups and downs.
LibraryThing member sblock
I have been recommending this book to anyone who will listen to me, and am just short of stopping people on the street. An incredibly important read for anyone who lived through the AIDS crisis and more importantly, for those who didn't.
LibraryThing member Dreesie
I had heard this book described as "the best of the year", and while I'm not sure I agree, I see it. This book is amazing and heartbreaking and well-written and just so sad yet somehow hopeful as well.
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Alternating chapters follow 2 interconnected timelines. The first, 1985-1990, looks at a
I thought Nora was a great character--an elderly woman who lived through the chaos of being in Paris as WWI started, and who fled back to the US, losing her love, her friends, her school, her dreamed-of future. As the older family member to accept her great-nephew Nico, she understood what it meant to be "the arty one", and she gave Nico and Fiona the mental support she could to help them. And her art from that time tied the characters together in 1985/1986. But these chapters are rough. Some are so hopefully, others so painfully sad and difficult.
Then the 2015 chapters are surprising. How the survivors' lives turned out--how the choices they made after the late 80s/early 90s reflected what they went through--but how their later choices affected others who were not even alive, or were children.
These characters are all so well done, they feel like real people. And many of the places and events mentioned were real, or stand-ins for real places, as mentioned in the author's note and Acknowledgments. People who survived Boystown in the 80/90s were some of Makkai's early readers. Makkai does not mention her connection, or how she came to write this book.
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Alternating chapters follow 2 interconnected timelines. The first, 1985-1990, looks at a
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friend group of mostly young gay men living/working in Boystown, Chicago, as HIV/AIDS sweeps through the country and their community. Nico, Terrence, Yale, Charlie, Richard, Teddy, Asher, Julian, Nico's sister Fiona, Yale's co-worker Cicely, Fiona and Nico's elderly great aunt Nora--all are trying to figure out how to fight, what to do, how to deal with medical insurance and disapproving parents. The latter timeline, 2015, looks at the survivors of that time and examines how affected their lives, their choices, their careers, their relationships.I thought Nora was a great character--an elderly woman who lived through the chaos of being in Paris as WWI started, and who fled back to the US, losing her love, her friends, her school, her dreamed-of future. As the older family member to accept her great-nephew Nico, she understood what it meant to be "the arty one", and she gave Nico and Fiona the mental support she could to help them. And her art from that time tied the characters together in 1985/1986. But these chapters are rough. Some are so hopefully, others so painfully sad and difficult.
Then the 2015 chapters are surprising. How the survivors' lives turned out--how the choices they made after the late 80s/early 90s reflected what they went through--but how their later choices affected others who were not even alive, or were children.
These characters are all so well done, they feel like real people. And many of the places and events mentioned were real, or stand-ins for real places, as mentioned in the author's note and Acknowledgments. People who survived Boystown in the 80/90s were some of Makkai's early readers. Makkai does not mention her connection, or how she came to write this book.
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LibraryThing member brenzi
I lost my brother to complications from the AIDS virus in 1993. He was 38 years old and eight years younger than me. It was a harrowing time for my family and one I wouldn’t want to relive so when I heard about this book and its concentration on the AIDS crisis in Chicago in the late 80s I
What I found was a book brimming with both sadness, which I expected, and hope, which surprised me. The young gay men in the story were all ambitious, smart, loving human beings dealing with the horrific loss of their friends and the probability of their own death with admirable courage and grace. The way in which the author depicted these characters makes me wonder if she had some personal connection to someone with AIDS because they were all so well-drawn.
There are two timeframes: 1986-92 and 2015 when Fiona, the sister of the first victim we encounter in the narrative, Nico, goes to Paris in search of her estranged daughter and stays with one of the survivors of the crisis that she knew in Chicago. In doing so she is forced to come to terms with her past and effect the crisis had on her and her ability to establish a good relationship with her daughter, who was born as one of the main characters lays dying in the AIDS ward of the hospital where Fiona’s baby is being born. As she looks back on her life the realization of the power the AIDS crisis had on her becomes apparent.
Powerful, important and compassionate I think this is a book everyone should read.
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didn’t really think I’d ever read it. It was just too close to home, too much of a return to a traumatic time and just too too hard. But for some reason I kept coming back to it, again and again and when I noticed it on several end of the year Best Books of 2018 lists I thought, why not? Maybe I’ll learn something or maybe it will help to settle something for me. What I found was a book brimming with both sadness, which I expected, and hope, which surprised me. The young gay men in the story were all ambitious, smart, loving human beings dealing with the horrific loss of their friends and the probability of their own death with admirable courage and grace. The way in which the author depicted these characters makes me wonder if she had some personal connection to someone with AIDS because they were all so well-drawn.
There are two timeframes: 1986-92 and 2015 when Fiona, the sister of the first victim we encounter in the narrative, Nico, goes to Paris in search of her estranged daughter and stays with one of the survivors of the crisis that she knew in Chicago. In doing so she is forced to come to terms with her past and effect the crisis had on her and her ability to establish a good relationship with her daughter, who was born as one of the main characters lays dying in the AIDS ward of the hospital where Fiona’s baby is being born. As she looks back on her life the realization of the power the AIDS crisis had on her becomes apparent.
Powerful, important and compassionate I think this is a book everyone should read.
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LibraryThing member mcelhra
The Great Believers is about a group of gay men in Chicago in the 1980s and how their lives are devastated by the AIDS crisis. It also flashes forward to the present day and the life of Fiona, the sister of Nico, one of the men in the group who succumbed to the disease. She was good friends with
The main character in the 1980s is Yale. He’s the type of man who is so sweet and kind that it made my heart hurt anytime something even remotely bad happened to him. He works for an art museum and is trying to get an elderly lady to donate her art collection without her greedy relatives interfering.
This book is a sweeping epic with many intricately intertwining threads. The characters were complicated and well-drawn and there were a few surprising twists. The author did extensive research and although the story is fictional, the events surrounding the evolution of the AIDS epidemic in Chicago are real. It’s heartbreaking how horrible victims were treated back then, even by health care professionals. If Rebecca Makkai’s previous novels are even half as wonderful as The Great Believers, then I will gobble them up. The Great Believers is a National Book Award finalist and is on all sorts of best books of 2018 lists. It deserves it all. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
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all the men in the group and watched a lot of them die one by one. That experience profoundly affected her life and she still grapples with it. At the same time, she’s on a mission to find her adult daughter, who ran away to join a cult.The main character in the 1980s is Yale. He’s the type of man who is so sweet and kind that it made my heart hurt anytime something even remotely bad happened to him. He works for an art museum and is trying to get an elderly lady to donate her art collection without her greedy relatives interfering.
This book is a sweeping epic with many intricately intertwining threads. The characters were complicated and well-drawn and there were a few surprising twists. The author did extensive research and although the story is fictional, the events surrounding the evolution of the AIDS epidemic in Chicago are real. It’s heartbreaking how horrible victims were treated back then, even by health care professionals. If Rebecca Makkai’s previous novels are even half as wonderful as The Great Believers, then I will gobble them up. The Great Believers is a National Book Award finalist and is on all sorts of best books of 2018 lists. It deserves it all. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
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LibraryThing member kayanelson
This was a great book and really made me think how hard it must be to be an author. The characters were so well developed and I felt like I really new them and wanted to be their friend and part of their group. I especially liked Yale. Then the plot going back and forth from the 80's to the naughts
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kept it interesting also. And it pulled together well also without feeling contrived. I'll be thinking about this book for a long time. Show Less
LibraryThing member quirkylibrarian
Back and forth between the 1980's AIDS crisis in Chicago and 2015 Paris where Fiona (sister to one of the AIDS victims and a caregiver to his friends as they died) searches for her estranged daughter. Against the backdrop of Yale's acquisition of a private art collection for the university gallery,
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a collection held by an elderly woman in Door County, WI whose grandniece, Fiona is a central character- to Yale, to the dying men in the gay community etc. The AIDS crisis is its own character in this gorgeous, slower paced novel. Show Less
LibraryThing member bookappeal
Makkai immerses readers into a culture many may not understand. The lives of homosexual men in Chicago's Boystown just as the AIDS epidemic was taking hold proves to be fertile ground for exploring friendship, love, loyalty, fear, and trust. A contemporary plot follows Fiona, whose older brother
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died from AIDS, as she tries to find her estranged adult daughter in France. A third storyline revolves around an ailing older woman in 1986 who wants to bequeath potentially valuable paintings to an upstart museum. The three stories don't converge so much as illuminate each other and the characters. A character-driven, literary but accessible novel that stirs many emotions but none so beautifully as grief and hope. Show Less
LibraryThing member Pmaurer
Not a part of the culture that I understand. I was interested in the artistic slant the book blurb promised, and stopped listening after the first tape when it didn't show up.
LibraryThing member Beth.Clarke
There are times when you finish a book, but the characters stay with you. Makkai's writing made me feel the pain of each character. Amazing novel! Makes me wish I could go to Chicago in the 80s and hang out with Yale and Fiona.
LibraryThing member detailmuse
This novel of friendship and tragedy is set in 1980s/'90s Chicago at the height of the AIDS crisis. It follows Yale Tishman (a development director for an art museum) and his group of gay friends, and alternates threads with the sister of one of those young men, following her decades later in 2015
The last sentences of the novel won’t mean much (and probably won't spoil for those who haven’t read it yet), but they’re the saddest sweetest sentences I’ve read in a long time and I want to save them for myself:
She expected the film to end right there, but instead, … the whole film looped again. There they all stood, … boys with hands in pockets, waiting for everything to begin.
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Paris (whose story I did not connect with until very late in the book). It’s compelling and important, a sort of homage. It’s exactly the time that I moved to Chicago as a newlywed, and become acquainted with an artist who had a gallery in the neighborhood of the novel, and who died of AIDS. It felt like being in that time again and I have been bereft since reading.The last sentences of the novel won’t mean much (and probably won't spoil for those who haven’t read it yet), but they’re the saddest sweetest sentences I’ve read in a long time and I want to save them for myself:
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LibraryThing member thorold
Oh, well, there's another box of tissues I'll never see again...
I had some misgivings about this book, despite the good things other people have said - I wasn't really keen to go back to all that emotional trauma, and I didn't altogether like the idea of belonging to a generation that has become
The answer seems to be: not all that much. Makkai's heart is clearly in the right place, and she's a competent, if rather long-winded, storyteller, but in the parts of the story where she's talking about what it was like to be in the middle of the Chicago gay community with your friends dying all around you, it's just as though you're back in a slightly more generic version of a 1980s novel by Edmund White, Paul Monette, David Feinberg, or one of the many others who wrote about that time from the front line. It works, and it was quite moving to read it, but it didn't give me any sort of lightbulb moment. What can there be to say that hasn't already been said? The real story of AIDS, seen in the longer perspective, should surely be the many millions of people still affected by the disease in Africa and elsewhere, a point Makkai buries in a single brief passing mention. However much the early casualties in the gay community affected us personally, when we look back now we have to see them as only the tiniest tip of the iceberg.
I should say that there were some unfortunate editing slip-ups in the early part of the book that probably prejudiced me against it from the start. One sentence that is going to haunt me for the rest of my life is "They sat in Denver Airport with bags under their eyes."
I had some misgivings about this book, despite the good things other people have said - I wasn't really keen to go back to all that emotional trauma, and I didn't altogether like the idea of belonging to a generation that has become
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the subject of historical fiction, but I was curious to see what a young writer could find to say about the AIDS crisis with the advantage of thirty years of hindsight.The answer seems to be: not all that much. Makkai's heart is clearly in the right place, and she's a competent, if rather long-winded, storyteller, but in the parts of the story where she's talking about what it was like to be in the middle of the Chicago gay community with your friends dying all around you, it's just as though you're back in a slightly more generic version of a 1980s novel by Edmund White, Paul Monette, David Feinberg, or one of the many others who wrote about that time from the front line. It works, and it was quite moving to read it, but it didn't give me any sort of lightbulb moment. What can there be to say that hasn't already been said? The real story of AIDS, seen in the longer perspective, should surely be the many millions of people still affected by the disease in Africa and elsewhere, a point Makkai buries in a single brief passing mention. However much the early casualties in the gay community affected us personally, when we look back now we have to see them as only the tiniest tip of the iceberg.
I should say that there were some unfortunate editing slip-ups in the early part of the book that probably prejudiced me against it from the start. One sentence that is going to haunt me for the rest of my life is "They sat in Denver Airport with bags under their eyes."
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LibraryThing member eembooks
A novel about the AIDS epidemic in the Chicago gay population with a side story chasing a lost daughter in Paris 30 years later. While I didn’t think the book was riveting still liked it very much even though kept wondering about the accuracy of a straight women chronicling gay behavior in the
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1980’s. Show Less
LibraryThing member Dianekeenoy
This was a very moving story moving between Chicago in the mid '80s during the Aids crisis and Paris in 2015 where Fiona is looking for her missing daughter, Clare. Fiona's brother Nico has died as the novel opens. We are introduced to a close group of friends as they struggle with his death. Then,
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from there, the Aids crisis that will eventually touch every single one of them. It's hard to put into words just how meaningful this book is, we're so far removed now from how Aids decimated an entire group of people in those dark days. Thank goodness. Show Less
LibraryThing member Nancyjcbs
The Great Believers is a beautifully written novel that deeply humanizes the two main characters. Their loving nature as well as their flaws are evident.
The novel is told in two times and places but Fiona is a major player in both. Fiona’s brother is part of a close circle of friends in Chicago.
In 2015 Fiona is estranged from her missing daughter. An investigation leads Fiona to Paris in search of her. She stays with another of Nico’s friends who is a famous photographer.
The inclusion of characters in both eras as well as memories of the earlier time never feel staged or forced. I believe this novel will stay with me for a while.
The novel is told in two times and places but Fiona is a major player in both. Fiona’s brother is part of a close circle of friends in Chicago.
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It is 1986, AIDS is devastating cities and these men are gay. The second major character is Yale. He’s a close friend of both Fiona and her brother Nico. Yale’s story is the driving force of this storyline.In 2015 Fiona is estranged from her missing daughter. An investigation leads Fiona to Paris in search of her. She stays with another of Nico’s friends who is a famous photographer.
The inclusion of characters in both eras as well as memories of the earlier time never feel staged or forced. I believe this novel will stay with me for a while.
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LibraryThing member janismack
I started this book and stopped after 50 pages. I did not find the characters sympathetic and I couldn’t get into the story.
Awards
National Book Award (Finalist — Fiction — 2018)
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2020)
Pulitzer Prize (Finalist — Fiction — 2019)
LA Times Book Prize (Finalist — Fiction — 2018)
Stonewall Book Award (Winner — 2019)
Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize (Fiction — 2019)
Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction (Finalist — Fiction — 2019)
Vermont Book Award (Finalist — Fiction — 2019)
BookTube Prize (Octofinalist — Fiction — 2019)
Clark Fiction Prize (2019)
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Fiction — 2018)
Booklist Editor's Choice: Adult Books (Fiction — 2018)
NPR: Books We Love (2018)
Boston Globe Best Book (Fiction — 2018)
The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Fiction — 2018)
Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year (Literary Fiction — 2018)
The New York Times Best Books of the Year (Fiction — 2018)
Notable Books List (Fiction — 2019)
ALA Over the Rainbow Book List (Selection — Literary and General Interest — 2019)
Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Fiction — 2018)
Illinois Reads (Adult — 2019)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2018)
New York Public Library Best Books: For Adults (Fiction — 2018)