The Great Believers

This book made me ugly cry more than any other book I've read in recent years. Now that’s a huge positive for me, but if it’s not for you that’s fair.

The Great Believers is a study of the AIDS crisis in 1980s Chicago beginning with a funeral – so yeah, it’s heavy. The novel starts with a sort of surreal party/wake to remember Nico – the first of a group of friends to die from AIDS – and avoid the somber funeral put on by Nico’s unaccepting parents. Life has to continue even after such a big loss. Yale has found his dream job in acquisitions and planned giving for an up and coming Northwestern art gallery and he’s on the verge of securing a really cool, but possibly fake collection of art. The collection was brought to Yale’s attention by his friend/Nico’s sister Fiona because it belongs to her Great Aunt. Not only does her collection hold the promise of never-before-seen works of art, it represents memories of a love affair altered by World War II.

“[Y]ou’ll understand: it was a ghost town… I could tell you their names, but it wouldn’t mean anything to you. If I told you Picasso died in the war, you’d understand. Poof, there goes Guernica. But I tell you Jacques Weiss died at the Somme and you don’t know what to miss. It–you know what, it prepared me for being old. All my friends are dying, or they’re dead already, but I’ve been through it before.”

In alternating chapters, we catch up with Fiona in 2015 who is in Paris trying to reconnect with her adult daughter who doesn’t seem interested in being found. While Yale is grappling with the virus’s fear and devastation in the gay community, Fiona is looking back on the 80s and coming to terms with the multi-generational trauma that led to her estrangement with her daughter. The book asks how much good can be found in the midst of disaster, whether love is strong enough to withstand such upheaval, and how people put one foot in front of the other even when their heart has been left behind. 

“If he could get through another week like this, then another–if he could stand here at the end of the month and congratulate himself again on getting through in one piece, then he could keep doing it forever.”

I’ve read books that grapple with the AIDS crisis before, but I haven’t read one that’s centered in Chicago and I haven’t read one that considers the long-lasting trauma and impact beyond the initial catastrophe. I think reading this novel with its mentions of the University of Michigan (my alma mater), Chicago landmarks like the Marina Towers, and Door County WI (I live in WI now) made this novel all the more real for me. Rebecca Makkai adds to this sense of realism by showing the character’s reactions to real world events like the Challenger explosion, Reagan’s presidency, and the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. I think Rebecca Makkai’s writing is special in the way characters are developed and unique, and in the way she shows moments of joy and triumph even in such a devastating setting. 

I do have a couple of criticisms of this book, especially with about a week of hindsight as I’m writing this. In general, I found Fiona’s chapters a bit more flat than Yale’s. I think moving between the raw emotions and deep character development in Yale’s chapters to the more internal and personal struggle Fiona is facing made her chapters a little bit less compelling. Also, there are several points in the book where we are supposed to believe that Fiona and Yale are super close and that, above all of the other boys, Fiona wants to care for Yale. However, they don’t interact a ton so I feel more told that they are close than actually seeing it. For example, Fiona talks about how she always liked Yale and that he took her to the art institute when she was younger, but I think it doesn’t feel as real as some of the other connections between characters. That said, I still think the impact they have on each other contributes to the overall storytelling and emotion.

Finally, while there are mentions of the continued impacts of AIDS, for example in that Fiona’s resale shop benefits AIDS organizations, the longer term impact seems to be mainly focused on Fiona’s trauma. While I think this makes sense in the context of the book, I found myself wondering if there should have been more mention of continued HIV infections and issues with affordable treatment, especially in African countries. I can’t really imagine a way for that to have been a natural part of the book, but it was something I noticed.

Ultimately, I loved this book and it is the first one in a while to get more than 4 stars from me!!

“If we could just be on earth at the same place and same time as everyone we loved, if we could be born together and die together, it would be so simple. And it’s not. But listen: You two are on the planet at the same time. You’re in the same place now. That’s a miracle. I just want to say that.”