Stefany GG reviewed The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Review of 'The Great Believers' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
*Lectura conjunta *
paperback, 448 pages
Published June 4, 2019 by Penguin Books.
4 stars
(20 reviews)
A dazzling new 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 …
A dazzling new 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.
The Great Believers has become a critically acclaimed, indelible piece of literature; it was selected as one of New York Times Best 10 Books of the Year, a Washington Post Notable Book, a Buzzfeed Book of the Year, a Skimm Reads pick, and a pick for the New York Public Library's Best Books of the year.
janson reviewed The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Review of 'The Great Believers' on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
It burrows, sight unseen, or perhaps merely uncomfortably so that I ruminate Chicagoan and Parisian without having been then nor of.
It burrows, sight unseen, or perhaps merely uncomfortably so that I ruminate Chicagoan and Parisian without having been then nor of.
pithypants reviewed The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Review of 'The Great Believers' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
This book paints a compelling picture of Chicago in the 1980s as AIDS ravaged the gay community. In some ways, it reminded me of A Little Life, though it wasn't as jarring or sensational.
This story had the feeling of a train running the tracks – I knew where it was headed from the opening pages, and yet, despite its predictability, the ride still showed me thing I hadn't considered before. It's easy now, in 2020, to forget what it was like when HIV arrived on the scene. And since I was still in middle school when it really wrecked havoc, I didn't have any solid first-hand sense of the experience. So it was interesting to re-live the 80s, but through the perspective of young gay men who went from having it all to watching their friends die terrible, inexplicable deaths.
Anyway. I'm giving this three stars because it was …
This book paints a compelling picture of Chicago in the 1980s as AIDS ravaged the gay community. In some ways, it reminded me of A Little Life, though it wasn't as jarring or sensational.
This story had the feeling of a train running the tracks – I knew where it was headed from the opening pages, and yet, despite its predictability, the ride still showed me thing I hadn't considered before. It's easy now, in 2020, to forget what it was like when HIV arrived on the scene. And since I was still in middle school when it really wrecked havoc, I didn't have any solid first-hand sense of the experience. So it was interesting to re-live the 80s, but through the perspective of young gay men who went from having it all to watching their friends die terrible, inexplicable deaths.
Anyway. I'm giving this three stars because it was well written and an interesting read, but I'm probably unfairly comparing it to A Little Life and deducting a few stars because I didn't become as attached to the characters. Definitely worth reading.
loppear reviewed The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Review of 'The Great Believers' on Goodreads
4 stars
Evocative and emotional, for being set intimately in Chicago & Paris, for the terror of love and despair in the AIDS epidemic, for dying obscured and forgotten, and for the well-wrought parallel to the Lost Generation's hopelessness, potentiality, and chaos. At least, as far as I or the author can say from wholly outside.
mayorbeetles reviewed The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Review of 'The Great Believers' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
"Just as she'd once been in a story about raising her own brother, growing up with her brother in the city on their own, making it in the world, when the virus and the indifference of greedy men had steamrolled through. She thought of Nora, whose art and love were interrupted by assassination and war. Stupid men and their stupid violence, tearing apart everything good that was ever built. Why couldn't you ever just go after your life without tripping over some idiot's dick?"
Incredibly slow pace in the beginning, but it pays off.
Bridgman reviewed The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Review of 'The Great Believers' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
About 675,000 Americans have died of AIDS since the epidemic began in the early 1980s. I knew none of them. This book, [a:Rebecca Makkai|3134707|Rebecca Makkai|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1313468002p2/3134707.jpg]'s fourth, makes me feel like I did.
She did loads of research but it doesn't read like that; I looked up the death number elsewhere. The chapters alternate between the mid 1980s and and early 90s to 2015. The Great Believers has its sad moments (how could it not?) but many of humor and many others of simple understanding and intelligent empathy.
Makkai has the ability good writers have to capture little, telling moments and describe them well, like this one about what a main character does after submitting his resignation and returning to his desk:
Yale opened his top drawer. There were at least fifty ballpoint pens, most inherited with the desk. He took one and squiggled a line on his legal pad. It …
About 675,000 Americans have died of AIDS since the epidemic began in the early 1980s. I knew none of them. This book, [a:Rebecca Makkai|3134707|Rebecca Makkai|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1313468002p2/3134707.jpg]'s fourth, makes me feel like I did.
She did loads of research but it doesn't read like that; I looked up the death number elsewhere. The chapters alternate between the mid 1980s and and early 90s to 2015. The Great Believers has its sad moments (how could it not?) but many of humor and many others of simple understanding and intelligent empathy.
Makkai has the ability good writers have to capture little, telling moments and describe them well, like this one about what a main character does after submitting his resignation and returning to his desk:
Yale opened his top drawer. There were at least fifty ballpoint pens, most inherited with the desk. He took one and squiggled a line on his legal pad. It didn't work at first, but then it did. He put it in the empty mug by his left hand, and then he forgot what he was doing and sat there blinking. Then he remembered and grabbed the next pen and tried it, and it was dead, and he dropped it into the trash can, where it landed too loudly. The next two were dry, the next clotted, the next fine. He went through all the pens. Twelve good ones. Two with Northwestern logos, a few plain Bics, a couple of fancy erasable ones, a few cheap ones advertising insurance companies. At least Yale guessed that was the writing on the sides; he couldn't focus his eyes.
chefraven reviewed The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Review of 'The Great Believers' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Stunning. Remarkable. Hard to put into words. Having lived in SF in the mid to late 80s and lost more friends than I can count, parts of this were terribly difficult to read.
