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THE GREAT BELIEVERS

by Rebecca Makkai ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 19, 2018

As compulsively readable as it is thoughtful and moving: an unbeatable fictional combination.

Another ambitious change of pace for the versatile and accomplished Makkai ( The Hundred-Year House , 2014, etc.), whose characters wrangle with the devastating impact of the AIDS epidemic at its height and in its aftermath.

In the first of two intertwined storylines, Yale and his live-in lover, Charlie, attend an unofficial wake for a dead friend, Nico, held simultaneously with his funeral service because his Cuban-American family has made it clear they don’t want any gay people there. It’s 1985, and Makkai stingingly re-creates the atmosphere of fear, prejudice, and sanctimonious finger-pointing surrounding the mortally afflicted gay community, even in a big city like Chicago. Nico’s younger sister, Fiona, has rejected their family and attached herself to his friends, with emotional consequences that become apparent in the second storyline, set 30 years later in Paris. As is often the case with paired stories, one of them initially seems more compelling, in this case Makkai’s vivid chronicle of Yale’s close-knit circle, of his fraught relationship with the obsessively jealous Charlie, and his pursuit of a potentially career-making donation for the university art gallery where he works in development. Fiona’s opaque feelings of guilt and regret as she searches for her estranged daughter, Claire, aren’t as engaging at first, but the 2015 narrative slowly unfolds to connect with the ordeals of Yale and his friends until we see that Fiona too is a traumatized survivor of the epidemic, bereft of her brother and so many other people she loved, to her lasting damage. As Makkai acknowledges in an author’s note, when a heterosexual woman writes a novel about AIDS, some may feel she has crossed “the line between allyship and appropriation.” On the contrary, her rich portraits of an array of big personalities and her affecting depiction of random, horrific death faced with varying degrees of gallantry make this tender, keening novel an impressive act of imaginative empathy.

Pub Date: June 19, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-7352-2352-3

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018

LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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by Rebecca Makkai

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THE NIGHTINGALE

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 3, 2015

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.

Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.

In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs : people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.

Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3

Page Count: 448

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014

HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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by Kristin Hannah

BOOK TO SCREEN

‘The Nightingale’ Is Reese’s Book Club Pick

SEEN & HEARD

by Robert Harris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 22, 2016

An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...

Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.

Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”

Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016

GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | LITERARY FICTION | RELIGIOUS FICTION | SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE

More by Robert Harris

by Robert Harris

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Sweepstakes

This stunning novel about '80s gay life will break your heart: EW review

'The Great Believers' is our must-read new novel for this Pride Month

Everyone’s dying in The Great Believers — or at least it feels that way. The AIDS epidemic has hit Boystown, the Chicago queer community kept on the city’s fringes and left to party, love, and mourn in the few sacred spaces they can call their own. The neighborhood consists of just a few blocks off Lake Michigan’s coast, but the novel, generous and rich as it is, can hardly be confined to a half-mile radius. It’s expansive — a vast landscape of characters and relationships, tragedies and triumphs, steeped in the long shadow of trauma.

Author Rebecca Makkai spikes a sadly familiar historical narrative with kaleidoscopic compassion. Her novel begins with a spirited wake: a gathering of close friends trying to pay tribute to a dead man who had no patience for the funereal. His only present relative is his 21-year-old sister, Fiona; she bonds with his circle and is welcomed into their chosen family. She’s close to Yale, an art gallery development director much older than her. The novel works between two timelines: the late ’80s, in which Yale’s friends (including his partner) keep getting sick, and 2015, when an aged Fiona tracks down her estranged daughter in Paris.

Makkai is intuitive, evading traps of sentimentality. She leans on her established strengths — realistic characters, emotional complexity — and in the context of this ’80s milieu, their potential is bracingly realized. Her relaxed prose flows; her fascination with human behavior enhances the book’s vivid ensemble. Makkai’s writing even assumes an effortless sweep, plunging readers into a saga of mesmerizing intimacy.

As in her last novel, the gothic The Hundred-Year House , Makkai, a Chicago native, introduces her hometown like a friend giving the insider’s tour: the bedrooms left open for late-night hookups, the secret spots perfect for wasting the days away, the cramped quarters where friends live — or lived, once. Makkai has a real feel for grief, achingly describing the city she’s long known inside and out as it’s suddenly permeating loss. You don’t just see the ghosts of her Believers — you spend time with them, learn their flaws and virtues and darkest fears, cry at their funerals right alongside those who’ve known them for decades.

As for who lingers longest, that’d still be Yale and Fiona. Their journeys initially seem a tad too detached, vignettes linked largely by the world they once shared. But the book’s grander scope comes into focus. Yale pursues an elderly art donor — a relative of Fiona’s — who confides in him about the deaths that surrounded her WWI-era youth; he’s confronted with the deep pain of merely living, of carrying on as everything meaningful around him disappears. Fiona, as she grows older, cares for infected gay men who can’t care for themselves anymore, and watches them pass on, body by body. She inherits an agony that informs her parental failings — a legacy traced by Makkai with lucidity, as well as ample melancholy. But if The Great Believers is heartbreaking, it isn’t quite dire. Its rousing final pages take Fiona to the art show of an old friend of Yale’s as she encounters a film featuring the men she, Yale, and so many others loved and lost — “boys with hands in pockets, waiting for everything to begin.” A–

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About the Book

FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE IN FICTION WINNER OF THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR FICTION WINNER OF THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

Soon to Be a Major Television Event, optioned by Amy Poehler

“A page turner... An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it’s like to live during times of crisis.” —The New York Times Book Review

A dazzling novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris.

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 ‘80s and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.

THE GREAT BELIEVERS has become a critically acclaimed, indelible piece of literature; it was selected as one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year, a Washington Post Notable Book, a BuzzFeed Book of the Year, a Skimm Reads pick, and a pick for the New York Public Library’s Best Books of the year.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

Publication Date: June 4, 2019
Genres: Fiction
Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN-10: 073522353X
ISBN-13: 9780735223530

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Review: The Great Believers

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction
Winner of the Andrew Carnegie medal
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction
Winner of the Stonewall Book Award
Shortlisted for the National Book Award
Soon to be a major television event, optioned by Amy Poehler
New York Times Best 10 Books of the Year
Washington Post Notable Book
Buzzfeed Book of the Year

Wowsers. Clearly I had an expectation that I was going to like this book, because everyone else seemed to!

The Summary

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.

My Thoughts

The big question is, did The Great Believers live up to all those praises and prizes for me? The short answer: yes.

The long answer:

First of all, I enjoyed the structure that Makkai chose for this story. I don’t love every book that jumps back and forth in time, as it can be hard to follow and make you feel jerked around. In The Great Believers , though, there are enough ties between the two time periods to truly feel like you’re reading the same story, just later on. The author is clearly talented, and the book comes off most definitely as literary fiction.

The story itself is immersive, for the most part. I felt really invested in Yale’s life and was rooting so hard for him to avoid AIDS, and also felt connected to Fiona in her part of the story. It’s hard to imagine what Boystown must have felt like when so many were dying from such a mysterious disease, but Makkai paints a pretty vivid image.

While reading about the deaths of so many is hard, there’s also so much love in this book: love between friends, lovers, siblings, mothers, daughters, family. Of course, along with all that love comes a whole lot of grief, too, as grief is only born out of love.

The book itself, though, was long. Super long. It took me way too much time to get through the thing! I don’t get super long bits of time to read anymore, as a mom with a 1-year-old, so reading this for an hour at a time maximum just took me forever. It’s not a fast read. While it does feel like the length is necessary for most of it, there were pieces of the story that I didn’t feel contributed much to the overall novel. I thought that some of the art bits could have been less detailed or have less time spent on them, as well as the whole cult thing with Fiona’s daughter.

If you’ve read this book, please let me know your thoughts in the comments on whether or not it was too long!

Overall, I think the hype and awards are deserved. This book is really gorgeous. I give it a full 4 stars!

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