The Great Believers

by Rebecca Makkai
Nov 15-Dec 7, 2018

I have always been emotionally affected by the AIDS crisis. I was not worried about myself, but all the unfortunate souls who were blind-sided and wrecked by such a hideous disease. So, when in the first chapter the characters are at a funeral for a friend who lost his battle with AIDS, I was immediately in the trenches with them.

I liked how the chapters alternated between the 80s and early 90s to present day. I loved the way the present and past threaded together as the story developed. I have never to my recollection read a chapter twice, but I was so intensely moved when Yale was finally diagnosed, that I had to read it again to feel that raw emotion one more time. While of course I knew it was a matter of time before he too was infected, the author managed to organically and surprisingly weave it into the story. As Yale was thinking of all the things he would never get to do, all of the experiences he would miss out on:

"All the books he hadn't started."

And in present day, his best friend Fiona is in Paris trying to find her daughter. Fiona is a tough character. While you can't help but feel sorry for her, her life and history have made her selfish and untrusting. Rightly so. At 21 she experienced more deaths of friends than most do in a lifetime.

"Why couldn't you ever just go through life without tripping over some idiot's dick?"

I enjoyed the subplot of the art acquisition and how it still managed to tie all the characters together. It was actually a welcome distraction to the anguish I felt for these suffering men. Makkai succeeded in telling a poignant, relevant account of a disease that should never be underestimated.

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