The Great Believers

By Rebecca Makkai, Penguin Books, 2018, 431 pages
Reviewed by Julie Bookman, June 16, 2020

I’ve told dozens of folks that this is the best novel I’ve read in a decade or two. A Pulitzer finalist, “The Great Believers” has two narratives. These are revealed in alternating chapters that share certain themes and a couple of common characters. One narrative unfolds in Chicago in the mid-1980s, just as the AIDS crisis is attacking/traumatizing the gay community and ever-worsening; the other takes place in Paris of 2015 and a supporting character in the ’80s thread takes on a larger role, enlisting a private detective to help find an estranged daughter.

The key character in Thread No. 1 is Yale Tishman, who works as a fundraiser for an art gallery at Northwestern University. I fell in love with Yale and cannot stop thinking about him. Several scenes at a potential art donor’s house in northern Wisconsin are among so many favorite moments — and these scenes, like every ounce of this stunning novel, skillfully figure into the overall plot. There’s no waste, no fluff here.

If you consider reading just one book I’ve rattled on about, I hope you make that “The Great Believers.”