Marchpane's Reviews > The Great Believers

The Great Believers was a mixed bag for me, and I feel I should emphasise upfront that my 3-star rating is not an ‘all-over’ 3, but a result of ‘averaging out’ the excellent bits with the less successful aspects.

The main storyline involves Yale Tishman, his boyfriend Charlie, their social circle, various hangers-on, and the wider gay community in Chicago at the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. It’s delicate subject matter but handled with great empathy, sensitivity and insight. The characters have depth, the story is compelling and achingly sad. This section is the book’s core.

“If you got it from sleeping with a thousand guys, then it’s a judgment on your promiscuity. If you got it from sleeping with one guy once, that’s almost worse, it’s like a judgment on all of us, like the act itself is the problem and not the number of times you did it. And if you got it because you thought you couldn’t, it’s a judgment on your hubris. And if you got it because you knew you could and you didn’t care, it’s a judgment on how much you hate yourself.”

Two side plots, 100 years apart, both involve art, estrangement and Paris. These weren’t well integrated, and I think there was really only room for one of them. In both strands, much of the plot is conveyed through expository dialogue, so instead of the reader ‘witnessing’ events, we hear characters relating them in conversation. This technique is a bit baffling given there are already multiple timelines involved. Why not have a chapter with Nora in the 1920s? Or Fiona in the 1990s? Overall these side plots were less engaging, seemed rushed in parts, and drew focus away from Yale & Co, diluting the main story’s effect.

Some narrative choices were odd too. One development was loudly telegraphed early on, but not revealed for ages, leaving me impatient for the characters to catch up. Another ‘reveal’ came out of the blue, in a way that felt unearned. Then late in the book, the build up to some key dramatic scenes was undermined by characters mentioning things in conversation before we get to see them unfold, thus robbing them of emotional impact. Simple, linear storytelling would have done the job much better.

These structural complaints really aren’t deal breakers at all - it’s just that the main story is so powerful, it deserved to land with its full emotional weight. Crucially, The Great Believers gets it right when it matters most, and at those moments it is very moving indeed.