Book Review: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

First of all, The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai is an incredible book. I started reading it on Friday night and finished it within 48 hours because I was obsessively tearing through the story. I read 100 pages in a single sitting without even noticing it the pages going by.

Second of all, I have never been so emotionally impacted by a book in my entire life. The closest experience I can think of is when I read Marley and Me in middle school, but even then, I think it solicited maybe 2 minutes of light tears. I am not exaggerating when I say I cried straight through the final 40 pages of this book.

I am going to include some spoilers later in this review, because I feel like I can’t do this book justice without them. For those of you who haven’t read it yet, I will include an image below and a big subhead that says “Spoilers Below,” so you are safe to read this until that point! I would highly encourage everyone read this book, as it is beautifully written and is highly educational about a disease many people don’t know a lot about. I thought I knew about the AIDS epidemic, but this book put it into an entirely new perspective for me.

Before I dive in, here is a quick overview of the novel (no spoilers). Makkai tells two intertwined stories. The first is set in the 1980s in Boystown, Chicago (where I live, although it’s now called Northalsted). This storyline follows a gay man in his early 30s named Yale as he and his friends grapple with the AIDS epidemic, which is increasingly impacting their own circle of friends.

The other half of the novel is set in 2015 and follows a woman named Fiona as she tries to track down her estranged daughter in Paris. Fiona’s late older brother is Nico, who was the first of Yale’s friends to die from AIDS. After Nico’s death, Fiona took on an increasingly motherly role in the friend group. Throughout the trip in Paris, she reflects on the trauma and loss she experienced in the 80s and 90s. There are many other interesting subplots, but those are the two major storylines.

Here is what I loved so much about this story:

The Characters

Rebecca Makkai is a master at developing complex characters, and lots of them. There are 2 protagonists (Yale and Fiona), probably 5-6 people who take major side roles, and at least 20 total regular characters in this book. I found all of them to be believable, nuanced characters I rooted for.

Something else I love that even the worst characters in the book all turn out to be realistic humans. Nobody is purely evil, and when characters do bad or selfish or ignorant things, you come to understand why. 

Makkai’s Portrayal of the AIDS Epidemic

I have read about the AIDS epidemic before and had a basic understanding of it, but The Great Believers painted this tragic period of history in an entirely new light. It gave me a new level of understanding of the tragedy and trauma members of the gay community faced during this time, the stigmatization they suffered from, the lack of recognition and medical care they received, and the devastation of so many losses.

One line in particular really struck me. Yale and another character have just learned that the Challenger spaceship exploded, killing the astronauts and teacher on board. A newscaster says that Ronald Reagan cancelled his State of the Union address but would “surely address” the explosion. And Yale thinks:

What Reagan would “surely address” wasn’t always so logical. A handful of dead astronauts and Reagan weeps with the nation. Thirteen thousand dead gay men and Reagan’s too busy (246).

Through Yale’s job working for an art museum at Northwestern University, Makkai also draws astute parallels between the Lost Generation of artists during WWI and the casualties of the AIDS epidemic. That’s all I’ll go into before I start giving away spoilers, but this is a really important book to read to understand this crisis.

The Setting

I’m definitely biased because this book takes place in the exact neighborhood I live in, but Makkai is also a master at painting a detailed scene, placing her readers strongly in the setting, and giving them a firm sense of place. Half of the book takes place in Boystown in Chicago, and I felt a little leap of excitement every time I recognized a street, restaurant, bookstore or landmark.

A Must Read

Before I move into the spoilers, I want to say again how much I think everyone should read this book. You can buy it here.

**Spoiler Time**

Ok seriously, if you haven’t read this book and plan to, or even think maybe you’ll possibly read this some day, stop reading here!!! 

Now that that is out of the way, WOW. I was not exaggerating above about how much this book made me cry. I misread the summary on the back cover before I started, and I was under the impression for like the first 75% of the book that the two storylines were going to converge in 2015 at the end, that Yale was going to materialize in Paris while Fiona searched for her daughter.

Little did I realize, Makkai getting ready to throw an extraordinarily more heartbreaking plot twist my way. Yale miraculously emerged from his relationship with Charlie unscathed by the virus, so I thought he was going to be safe. But then the curveball: just a few months later, he contracted it from someone who had misled him into believing he was safe. I nearly threw my book across the room, I was so upset when I hit page 334 and the writing style totally changed and I suddenly realized I was reading Yale’s disconnected thoughts after learning he was HIV positive.

Through my sobbing, I wished at first that Makkai had given this novel a happier ending. If one or two members of Yale’s group of friends were going to survive the epidemic, why didn’t she make the one we loved the most one of the survivors?

But then I realized that, sadly, horribly, that wouldn’t have been realistic, and it wouldn’t have been a just portrayal of the epidemic for real AIDS victims and survivors. HIV and AIDS don’t discriminate based on the kindness of the person or the number of people who love them. In the real world, many Yales did die tragic, lonely deaths. Many Fionas were given power of attorney over 20-something friends in their dying days, and spent the rest of their lives grappling with staggering losses.

Any other ending would have sugarcoated the epidemic, protecting readers from the ugly truth: that AIDS decimated the gay community, that many lives were lost due to lack of information, resources, and healthcare, and that the majority of the world turned a blind eye while thousands of people died from this disease.

Again, in spite of how sad this made me, I can’t emphasize enough how much I loved this book.

Rating: 5 stars

Rating Scale:
5 Stars: I love this book!!!
4 Stars: Pretty good
3 Stars: Good
2 Stars: Not for me
1 Star: Truly dislike