Pinterest tracking pixel
If you are having difficulty navigating this website please contact us at member.services@bookofthemonth.com or 1-877-236-8540.
Oops! The page didn’t load right. Please refresh and try again.
All booksHistorical fictionThe Great Believers
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Historical fiction

The Great Believers

by Rebecca Makkai

Quick take

An intimate story about the 1980s AIDS epidemic, covering the lives (and loves) that were won and lost.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Icon_400

    400+ pages

  • Illustrated icon, Icon_SocialIssues

    Social issues

  • Illustrated icon, Icon_LGBTQ

    LGBTQ+ themes

  • Illustrated icon, Icon_Sad

    Sad

Synopsis

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.

Read less

Member thoughts

All (998)
All (998)
Love (758)
Like (214)
Dislike (26)
1015 ratings
  • 75% Love
  • 21% Like
  • 3% Dislike
    Historical fiction
    • Lessons in Chemistry
    • The People We Keep
    • Malibu Rising
    • The Personal Librarian
    • Magic Lessons
    • The Book of Longings
    • Hester
    • The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
    • The Nightingale
    • Daisy Jones & The Six
    • The Lincoln Highway
    • Peach Blossom Spring
    • Booth
    • Sisters in Arms
    • The Perishing
    • Portrait of a Scotsman
    • The Family
    • Things We Lost to the Water
    • The Postmistress of Paris
    • Still Life
    • Send for Me
    • The Magnolia Palace
    • China Room
    • Summer of '69
    • This Tender Land
    • All the Light We Cannot See
    • The Vanishing Half
    • Outlawed
    • The Four Winds
    • The Giver of Stars
    • The Fountains of Silence
    • The Night Tiger
    • Libertie
    • The Clockmaker's Daughter
    • The Summer Wives
    • A Gentleman in Moscow
    • The Great Alone
    • The Age of Light
    • The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
    • The Paris Hours
    • The Heart's Invisible Furies
    • The Rules of Civility
    • Circling the Sun
    • The Moor's Account
    • The Flight Portfolio
    • Jacqueline in Paris
    • Don't Cry for Me
    • The Christie Affair
    • The Good Left Undone
    • Take My Hand
    • Bloomsbury Girls
    • The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle
    • Bronze Drum
    • The Attic Child
    • The Circus Train