“Makkai knits themes of loss, betrayal, friendship and survival into a powerful story of people struggling to keep their humanity in dire circumstances.” -People Magazine 'Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers is a page turner. among the first novels to chronicle the AIDS epidemic from its initial outbreak to the present-among the first to convey the terrors and tragedies of the epidemic’s early years as well as its course and repercussions.An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it’s like to live during times of crisis.' -The New York Times Book Review Louis Post-Dispatch, Lit Hub, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, New York Public Library and Chicago Public Library 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.

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. 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. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself.

Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. 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. An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it’s like to live during times of crisis.” -The New York Times Book ReviewĪ dazzling novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris Soon to Be a Major Television Event, optioned by Amy Poehler

The great believers a novel