The Great Believers
Ratings61
Average rating4.6
15
Ratings61
Average rating4.6
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 “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
Reviews with the most likes.
One sentence synopsis... Told in alternating chapters, between a group of gay men in Chicago in the 1980s and a mother searching for her daughter in Paris in 2015, this books tells the story of the AIDS epidemic from the initial outbreak to present day. .
Read it if you liked... ‘The Normal Heart', ‘Dallas Buyers Club', or other thoughtful and heartbreaking chronicles of the AIDS crisis. Also, the series ‘Looking' for the complicated male friendships. .
Dream casting... Kate Hudson as the flighty but loyal mother Fiona. Jonathan Groff as Yale. Also, this would need to be a miniseries instead of a movie. Production companies take note. To make this layered, decade-crossing story a 2hr movie would be to rob it of so much depth.
Wow. Just wow. This book is so marvelously sad. Tragically, beautifully, wonderfully sad. It's that perfect confluence of art, emotion, and entertainment and I absolutely loved it.
I'm finding these days the mark of a good book means a few things for me: 1) I can't put it down, and when I have to, I spend a good portion of the day looking forward to getting back to it. 2) some sentences make me pause and reread to reflect on some sentiment that seems so absolutely true to me, yet so nuanced that I'm almost surprised someone else felt the same 3) I'm completely immersed in a different perspective and a different time — so much so that I feel, viscerally, the pains of that perspective/time... and get so engrossed that I find myself googling, say, “1980s AIDS crisis Chicago” because I need to know everything.
And this book did those things. It sounds corny but reading it, I felt among a group of friends. And the plot is consuming, besides. Great read!
