I don’t want to get into any more plot details, but I will say I was at first more interested in the 1980’s story than the 2015 Paris story. It was definitely some good family drama as well as a love story from the past. Fiona’s son doesn’t even understand how much it’s worth, but he detests Yale and wants to keep the art for himself. I was unexpectedly drawn into Yale’s life when Fiona’s great aunt wants to donate some famous never-before-seen art that she obtained when she was a model in Paris right after the war. Charlie is an outspoken editor of a gay Chicago weekly while Yale works for Northwestern in development for a new Art Gallery. He and Charlie are lucky enough to have recently tested negative. Yale, however, is a man we follow throughout the book.

There are many characters, and like in our lives, some big ones fall out, while other peripheral characters become more important. This book doesn’t really follow an expected narrative. Fiona is staying with her old friend, Richard Campo, who is now a famous, successful photographer living in Paris.

It takes most of the book to learn why Claire is in Paris, why Fiona knows she’s in Paris, and why Fiona is desperate to find her. In 2015, Fiona, Nico’s sister is on a plane to Paris in an attempt to find her daughter, Claire. The chapters alternate between Chicago in the 1980’s and 2015. So, instead they were celebrating his life at a friend’s house, Richard Campo. Nico’s partner and gay friends were not welcome at his funeral, even though they were his support system and his chosen family. The book begins with Yale and his boyfriend Charlie heading to a memorial for their friend, Nico, who has just died of AIDS. I think this may turn out to be one of my favorite books of the year. I was not expecting to get so sucked into the characters and their lives.

So that’s why it took me until 2020 to finally get around to it.Īnd I am so glad I did. I was afraid this would be one of those well-written books that is a struggle for me to read. I was too young to really know about or understand what was happening with AIDS in the 1980’s, and I thought reading about it now would be depressing. The blurb just said it was about 1980’s Chicago during the AIDS epidemic and the art scene in Paris in 2015. The cover and the title don’t give much away. However, I wasn’t sure this was a book I would enjoy reading. I was convinced that it was worth reading by the glowing reviews and the many awards–it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and National Book Award finalist. I first saw The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai on NPR’s Best Books of 2018 List.

Review of the great believers