The Great Believers

De: Rebecca Makkai

Narrado por: Michael Crouch

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2018
LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER
ALA CARNEGIE MEDAL WINNER
THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD WINNER

Soon to Be a Major Television Event, optioned by Amy Poehler • One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

“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 eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.

Named a Best Book of 2018 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, The Seattle Times, Bustle, Newsday, AM New York, BookPage, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Lit Hub, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, New York Public Library and Chicago Public Library

TREMENDOUS!

Rebecca Makkai, with the help of Michael Crouch (narrator), has accomplished a truly beautiful thing here. This is one of those books that will never leave you, it will enter your heart & soul & remain with you forever. A book you’ll require a “mourning period” upon completion. A book so beautifully written & richly developed you’ll wish it never to end. For the characters to stay, to just stay & be with you forever. This book is a rare find. A masterpiece of character development unlike anything I’ve experienced before. It will leave you raw, and in awe. Much like Hanya Yanagihara’s “A Little Life”, but a little less depressing & tortured, a little.

I Loved This So Much

It's life and love and time, trauma and healing, so so so much! I listened to it twice in a row, and am about to start it again.

Unbelievable modern fiction that isn’t fiction

Wonderfully and beautifully written. A perfect follow-up or prequel to “A Little Life”.

A must read / listen.

Wonderful!

The story was compelling enough to keep me reading, certainly...but even better, it flooded me with different emotions toward the characters at different points in the book. As things kept happening to the characters and their perspectives changed, how I felt about them changed. It was also an eye-opener about the start of the AIDS epidemic in the early 80s. I was around at the time, but only a child and too young to understand. This narrator was FANTASTIC! I’m a narrator snob, but I don’t think he mispronounced a single syllable. His voice was pleasant and he did slightly different voices for most of the characters, but none of them felt forced or sounded odd. Definitely get this book!

1980s

This book did a wonderful job of bringing back a time of joy and pain. It brought it all to light with stories of a group of delightful characters in the gay community and their battle with AIDS. Somehow it manages to be happy and sad all wrapped into one. I was sorry to see it end.