The Great Believers

An excellent choice of book if you’re someone that doesn’t know a huge amount about the AIDS crisis. It’s different, enlightening and very well written.

I loved this book and would like to read more like it, or by this author. I felt very sorry for Yale and for Fiona. By the end of the book I hated manipulative and hypocritical Bill and was deeply aggravated by shallow Roman. I would have liked to know more about Charlie's story, and seen things through his eyes too, even though he was not a nice character. I think his tragedy was that he probably did love Yale, even while he did bad,stupid and selfish things and treated him badly. I do think that Yale deserved better than Charlie - and for better things to happen to him - but when has the world ever been fair? I enjoyed reading about how the AIDS crisis affected the community in an American city in the eighties because it is a subject that fascinates me, from a human and social perspective. The very best and the very worst of humanity when faced with a medical and humanitarian crisis. Also the legacy of this time: both good and bad. It is a positive thing that fiction is now exploring the AIDS crisis, its effects and after-shocks in this multi-dimensional and retrospective way, at a time when it seems to be fading from people's minds, when some people are either denying or diminishing its horror, its impact upon a whole generation. And especially when a new generation, who never experienced what the previous one went through, are sometimes ignorant of this holocaust and of what they could learn from it.

The Great Believers is an engrossing novel set in two time frames with alternating chapters. The first timeline takes us back to the mid eighties in Chicago and is told from the perspective of a young gay man, Yale Tishman. Happily settled in a long term relationship with journalist and activist Charlie, his art gallery job is flourishing. Thanks to a tip off from a friend he is hoping to discover some previously unknown works from famous artists. Juxtaposed with this success though is the horror of the AIDS epidemic. One by one his friends in their close knit community start to succumb to this terrible disease.The second strand follows Fiona, 30 years later trying to track down her estranged daughter Claire. Fiona's brother Nico was one of the first of Yale's friends to die from AIDS. Watching so many of her friends suffer and die has left Fiona with emotional scars and contributed to the breakdown of her relationship with Claire.The two strands twine together and tie up beautifully in the final chapter. It's an absorbing, often sad, but also frequently joyful read.

A wise and sensitive book. Ms Makkai's writing is filled with a wealth of well drawn characters some of whom are the epitome of what humans should be and others, well, not so much.The chapters set in the 1980/90's add depth to those based in 2015 and the 2015 chapters afford some resolution to those set in the earlier decades - it works wonderfully well.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book - having started reading the book I knew little about the AIDS crisis. The book is compelling and teaches you throughout about the endless trauma and heartbreak during this time, while also drawing you to the characters who I became so invested in. A definite read for anyone interested in this era and who enjoys character led reads. Thank you for writing this Rebecca.

This book allowed me to learn more about the 80s and HIV and AIDS and the awful struggle for acceptance that the gay community had to go through in America. The charcaters were flawed as real humans and had heart. I did not find it a particularly uplifting story as led to believe, but it was entertaining. I liked the shift in time frames, and it opened discussions with people who lived through the 80s.I felt the start of the book was stronger than the end and I personally wanted to know more about Claire, as I found it hard to care about her as she came across unlikable after growing to care for Fiona so much.

Heartbreaking and affecting this is a stunning read which manages to draw individual characters rather than relying on stereotypical images of gay men in 80s America. It paints a picture from the very beginning of the AIDS crisis whilst also involving us in the search for a daughter and and the exploration of an artistic legacy. I loved this book.

I loved the story. This book puts in perspective the aids pandemic in Chicago during the 80s. The shock and fear of this new illness/ virus that no one understood and the loss of so many lives. FThe characters are all so real and full of emotions. Heart gripping I couldn’t put it down.