The Great Believers

Fragile. Life is precious, fragile, and bad stuff happens. Our response is to love. In her novel titled, The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai pulls readers into the AIDS crisis in 1985 and a cast of characters in Chicago whose lives are changed in an instant. A second story line is set in Paris thirty years later with some of the same characters from the earlier timeline. Protagonist Fiona ties the two periods together: mourning the death of her brother, Nico, from AIDS in the 1980s and the search for her estranged daughter in 2015. Makkai’s staccato writing moves the plot lines along at a steady pace, and she presents the emotional tension with skill. Living and loving: the grist of most novels, done here with great skill. Rating: Four-star (I like it) Click here to purchase The Great Believers from amazon.com.