Description

The Great Believer by Rebecca Makkai (2018, 1st ed.)

Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers is a sweeping, deeply moving novel that explores friendship, loss, and the enduring impact of the AIDS crisis across generations. The story unfolds in two interwoven timelines: Chicago in the 1980s, at the height of the epidemic, and Paris in 2015, where the past continues to shape the present.

In 1985 Chicago, Yale Tishman is the development director for an art gallery while watching his close-knit circle of friends—young, brilliant gay men—fall ill one by one. As the crisis intensifies, the novel captures the fear, grief, love, and resilience of a community fighting for survival amid indifference and stigma. Decades later, Yale’s friend Fiona searches Paris for her estranged daughter, tracing the long shadows cast by that earlier devastation.

Makkai weaves personal and cultural history into a powerful meditation on art, memory, activism, and chosen family. Both intimate and expansive, The Great Believers honors lives lost while celebrating the bonds that endure.

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, The Great Believers is a profound, unforgettable portrait of love and survival in the face of catastrophe.

Copyright: This first edition hardcover copy was published by Viking in 2018 with cover art including “‘Stirring, spellbinding and full of life.’ – Tea Obreht, bestselling author of THE TIGER’S WIFE” and “AUTHOR OF THE HUNDRED-YEAR HOUSE”.

Condition: Good. Used.

ISBN-10: 0735223521

ISBN-13: 9780735223523

Dewey Decimal: 813.6