The Great Believers: A Novel
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2018
LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER
ALA CARNEGIE MEDAL WINNER
THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD WINNER Soon to Be a Major Television Event, optioned by Amy Poehler - One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century "A page turner . . . An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it's like to live during times of crisis." --The New York Times Book Review
A dazzling novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris 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. Named a Best Book of 2018 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, The Seattle Times, Bustle, Newsday, AM New York, BookPage, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Lit Hub, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, New York Public Library and Chicago Public Library
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2018
LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER
ALA CARNEGIE MEDAL WINNER
THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD WINNER Soon to Be a Major Television Event, optioned by Amy Poehler - One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century "A page turner . . . An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it's like to live during times of crisis." --The New York Times Book Review
A dazzling novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris 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. Named a Best Book of 2018 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, The Seattle Times, Bustle, Newsday, AM New York, BookPage, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Lit Hub, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, New York Public Library and Chicago Public Library
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Community Reviews
Audio reader: 2.5 out of 5 (He wasn’t annoying to listen too but the words often fell flat.
Book: The most impressive take away was Nora comparing what the gay community was going through as a war, similar to what she went through during WW1. So many men lost, so many untold stories, so many works of art that are left unpainted and unsung because of the “war” that left so many dead.
I am glad to read an engaging storyline on this topic. Historical fiction often helps educate us on topics and small details of real life that we might not have known. I love this about historical fiction. It draws history into an engaging story line. Makes the topic have real people- often missed in reading about something you are on the outside of.
I feel I learned more about what it must have felt like inside of the early AIDS epidemic. I watched it unfold on the news as a teenager (not a good source for the real torment and pain happening in the community) - and the isolation they felt. No wonder it’s a family- when so many of their families cast them aside. 😩
Lovely yet heartbreaking book, set in 1980s Chicago, when the AIDS crisis has just started to unfold, and in 2015 Paris, where a mother is desperately searching for her long-lost daughter. The stories are woven back and forth, and we see how the past shapes the future in this story of a group of friends and family.
This was a hard book to evaluate. I generally do not care for books in which the timeline constantly shifts from one period to another. I generally do not like novels in which the main character in whom I have become engaged dies a horrible death. And Makkai's novel does all of these things. I have to admit I hated the first forth of the book, loved the middle half, and did not really care for the last quarter. I felt cheated that so many of the characters with whom I became involved were, I felt, abandoned as the book progressed. Having said all of those things, this is a remarkable book describing a horrible period I remember only too well -- the 1980s when several of my friends died with AIDS. But Makkai does tell her story lovingly, and that is sometimes difficult for an author to do; describe such a sad period with grace and compassion. At the end, what stands out is just how well this book is written. It deserves to be read.
Read June 2021
NOTES:
S: Love love love this book. Lives in my head rent free and the characters feel like real people in my life.
T: Probably the most impactful book we've read. Gut wrenching and deeply emotional. The characters felt like friends.
J: I couldn't read another non-fiction for awhile after this book. Books don't make me cry and this got me several times. Makes you feel for the characters and know them. You do really understand the HIV crisis better as a result. Heros all heros.
B:
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