The Great Believers Rebecca Makkai

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers, published in June by Viking.Rebecca’s books have been translated into many languages and her short fiction has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories in 2011, 2010, 2009, and 2008. Which is actually quite a big deal. He first novel was The Borrower, an Indie Next pick, her second novel was The Hundred-Year House and I remember the great review of it in the NYT. Her short story collection Music for Wartime was published in 2015.The Great Believers is a book that intertwines two stories. One that took place in the mid 80s and the other in 2015. The first is about AIDS, the second is about the loss of a child, redemption and the forces of memory and love that shape our lives, our entire lives no matter how long ago the love or memory was.There are a lot of characters but they are easily recognizable throughout and we have an acquaintance or friendship with them by stories’ end.Yale Tishman is about to achieve an unexpected and really cool goal but as it approaches, his life and the lives of so many others are devastated by the AIDS crisis in Chicago in the mid-eighties. Yale’s partner Charlie, his friend Nico and many others of the boystown group succumb to the disease or its effects (both in terms of the illness and the way it changes the lives of so many).Fiona, in 1985 is kind of the den mother in many ways to these boys, these young men. And that obligation creates a great responsibility for her, one that figures in the rest of her life as well as in her daughter’s— Claire.As we swing forward and back in time we mourn those who have been lost and hope for the ones who remain, especially when they try their hardest to amend or atone for what may have been mistakes or abandonment.