Call number
FIC MAK
Collection
Genres
Publication
Viking (2018), Edition: First Edition, 432 pages
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 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 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 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 RitaDragonette
A highly ambitious tour de force. A big, important subject requires an equally significant book and 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
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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. 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 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 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 froxgirl
My absolute top book of 2018 so far. Two congruent stories of equal heft and quality by an author who not only recounts true life events beautifully, but also delves deeply into the thoughts and actions of her characters. The first plot takes place in mid '80s Boytown, Chicago, at the beginning of
Quotes: "Asher had a New York accent, and the way he pronounced certain words - coffee, for instance - made Yale want to mouth them in his wake."
"The most ridiculous of Yale's first loves was Clarence Darrow, as portrayed in Inherit The Wind, which he'd read in tenth grade. He'd avoided speaking in class for two whole weeks, terrified his cheeks would redden if he tried to discuss the play."
"To know that someone was longing for you was the world's strongest aphrodisiac."
"The journalist was the kind of woman who seemed entirely made of scarves."
"Ageism is the only self-correcting prejudice, isn't it?"
"I'm not an alcoholic. That was a joke.
How was that funny?
I don't know. I was drunk."
"It's been a long time since I had a day that juts cuts your life in two. Like, this hangnail on my thumb, I had it yesterday. It's the same hangnail, and I'm a completely different person."
"You'll never know anyone's marriage but your own. And even then, you'll only know half of it."
"It had been her failing with Claire all along - pretending not to love her as much as she did. Trying to steel herself against a broken heart, the way she would with a boyfriend."
"The first time she and Damian had gone to couples therapy, the therapist had finally said, "What are you afraid will happen if you open yourself up to him completely?" And Fiona had shouted, "He would die!" It clearly wasn't what the therapist had expected to hear. He hadn't been a very good therapist."
"It's always a matter of waiting for the world to come unraveled. When things hold together, it's always only temporary."
"If we could just be on earth at the same time and same place as everyone we loved, if we could be born together and die together, it would be so simple."
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the AIDS crisis, and follows a tight group of friends, a true community, as they struggle through the certain death of their entire cohort. Yale is the main focus, and he is supported by Fiona, whose brother Nico dies as the novel opens. In the second tale, the grown up Fiona seeks her missing daughter Claire in 2015 Paris, where her great aunt Nora was the muse for artists such as Modigliani back in the 1920s, when WW I and the Influenza pandemic was also gutting an entire generation. The connective tissue between the main characters and the endearing minor ones is so strongly drawn that it is almost a miracle to behold, as is the resolution of all the conflicts afflicting Yale, Fiona, Nora, and Claire. Unforgettable.Quotes: "Asher had a New York accent, and the way he pronounced certain words - coffee, for instance - made Yale want to mouth them in his wake."
"The most ridiculous of Yale's first loves was Clarence Darrow, as portrayed in Inherit The Wind, which he'd read in tenth grade. He'd avoided speaking in class for two whole weeks, terrified his cheeks would redden if he tried to discuss the play."
"To know that someone was longing for you was the world's strongest aphrodisiac."
"The journalist was the kind of woman who seemed entirely made of scarves."
"Ageism is the only self-correcting prejudice, isn't it?"
"I'm not an alcoholic. That was a joke.
How was that funny?
I don't know. I was drunk."
"It's been a long time since I had a day that juts cuts your life in two. Like, this hangnail on my thumb, I had it yesterday. It's the same hangnail, and I'm a completely different person."
"You'll never know anyone's marriage but your own. And even then, you'll only know half of it."
"It had been her failing with Claire all along - pretending not to love her as much as she did. Trying to steel herself against a broken heart, the way she would with a boyfriend."
"The first time she and Damian had gone to couples therapy, the therapist had finally said, "What are you afraid will happen if you open yourself up to him completely?" And Fiona had shouted, "He would die!" It clearly wasn't what the therapist had expected to hear. He hadn't been a very good therapist."
"It's always a matter of waiting for the world to come unraveled. When things hold together, it's always only temporary."
"If we could just be on earth at the same time and same place as everyone we loved, if we could be born together and die together, it would be so simple."
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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 nivramkoorb
This book was on the shortlist for the 2018 National Book Award. Although the subject of the AIDS crisis in Chicago in 1985 is a difficult read, this book is worth the effort. The book alternates between 1985-92 and 2015. The main characters are Fiona at 20 year old in 85 whose brother Nico has
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just died from Aids. The other main character is her close friend Yale a gay man who was a close friend of her brother. The 2015 story revolves around Fiona in Paris looking for her estranged 27 daughter Claire. Although the 2015 story was not as compelling as the Chicago story it was important in tying the whole book together. Being from Chicago and having spent a few months in Paris it made the story even better for me. Makkai does not use extensive layered prose but she tells a great story with interesting characters. It is important to remember how badly the AIDS crisis was handled by the public, the government, doctors, and the insurance industry. Reading the book told through Yale and Fiona allowed me to look at the impact AIDS has had on both the victims and the families. In Fiona's case the impact of grief carried over to her relationship with her daughter. The book also deals with a subplot surrounding the donation of an art collection in 1985 by Fiona's 90 year old great aunt. Even though we have done a better job of acceptance of the LGBT community, this book's portrayal of rejections by family of their gay friends and families reminds us what is was like when the crisis began. A definite worthwhile read. I will definitely check out her other books. 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 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 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 Narshkite
I have been meaning to read this book for a year, and every time I had the emotional bandwidth and reading time (its almost 500 pages) I shied away. I am of the age covered in the Great Believers, I lost friends to AIDs, many friends, two of whom were quite dear to me. I attended the funeral of a
I won't say much about the plot, but will mention that there are two timelines here. The first is in the AIDs killing fields of the 80's. The story revolves around a group of friends, gay men, who are decimated by the disease, and the woman around whom they swirled. The second is 2015 when that same woman is dealing with life in the aftermath of the pain and fear of losing her people. I often hate dual timelines, but this absolutely worked. The reader gets to see the pain doesn't end when the lives flame out.
Makkai's characters are rich and complex. I loved Yale and Fiona so much, and wanted good things for them. I was mostly not rewarded with good things, but there was such truth to their journeys I knew there was no other way for them to play out. In the end this is a book not about death, but about love and grief, and about how completely worth it it is to invest in people, to trust, even when it ends in scorching pain. So far its my fiction read of the year I think. I find I am reading a lot of really great books about grief these days, but mostly they are memoirs. They are wonderful too, but this book made me remember that there are things a writer can do in fiction that sometimes get us to more universal truths than non-fiction can manage. I don't know what to say, except, read it!
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22 year old who had looked 122 when he finally died while I lived in a country with a president who would not even say the word AIDS. Reagan gets lionized now, but that is not an exaggeration. He took the position that something that was only killing Gay men and Africans was not of national concern. That is not hyperbole. It is good for me to be reminded that I lived through that kind of institutionalized meanness before (though the current meanness is next level), and it is also good for me to be reminded that many people did not live through it. Its good for me to remember what is is like to shake cyclosporin powder on bedsores so deep you could see bone, on a 75 pound 6 foot tall 22-year old who three months earlier had been so beautiful it hurt to look at him. It is good for me to remember that the Gay community had to find solutions the government didn't care about, and that when they started to find answers, they widened the net to see that proper care and medication was available to people outside the community, that it wasn't us and them from inside the AIDs activist community, just from the government and the purportedly straight folks. All those things are good for me to remember, but the rememberancr certainly does not feel good. And that is what kept me from reading before. But I finally got over it, and OMG, this book is wonderful! Sad, and affirming, and gorgeous and pretty perfect. (I listened to the audio for this, and the reader is excellent.)I won't say much about the plot, but will mention that there are two timelines here. The first is in the AIDs killing fields of the 80's. The story revolves around a group of friends, gay men, who are decimated by the disease, and the woman around whom they swirled. The second is 2015 when that same woman is dealing with life in the aftermath of the pain and fear of losing her people. I often hate dual timelines, but this absolutely worked. The reader gets to see the pain doesn't end when the lives flame out.
Makkai's characters are rich and complex. I loved Yale and Fiona so much, and wanted good things for them. I was mostly not rewarded with good things, but there was such truth to their journeys I knew there was no other way for them to play out. In the end this is a book not about death, but about love and grief, and about how completely worth it it is to invest in people, to trust, even when it ends in scorching pain. So far its my fiction read of the year I think. I find I am reading a lot of really great books about grief these days, but mostly they are memoirs. They are wonderful too, but this book made me remember that there are things a writer can do in fiction that sometimes get us to more universal truths than non-fiction can manage. I don't know what to say, except, read it!
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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 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 strandbooks
If Oprah still had her book club, she’d put a sticker on The Great Believers! The writing is excellent and the story is emotionally devastating.
It flips back and forth from 1985 Chicago and 2015 Paris. The Chicago portion follows a group of young gay men as they become infected with AIDS. The
(For my development friends, there is an interesting sub-plot where one of the main characters works in a university advancement office for an art gallery, specifically on a contested planned gift.)
It flips back and forth from 1985 Chicago and 2015 Paris. The Chicago portion follows a group of young gay men as they become infected with AIDS. The
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Paris portion focuses on the sister of one of the men who died and how her life and subsequently her daughter’s life was shaped by those years of caring for her brother and his friends. As much as it is about the AIDS epidemic and being gay in the 1980s, the parent/child relationship dynamics was a major part too.(For my development friends, there is an interesting sub-plot where one of the main characters works in a university advancement office for an art gallery, specifically on a contested planned gift.)
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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 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.
Awards
Pages
432
ISBN
0735223521 / 9780735223523