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Michael's Reviews > The Great Believers
The Great Believers
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Alternating between present-day Paris and '80s Chicago, The Great Believers explores the impact and aftermath of the AIDS epidemic on a close-knit group of friends living in Boystown. The novel tells three stories, through two perspectives. In the main plot, Yale Tishman struggles to cope with the illness and loss of his friends, and placate a jealous partner who fears Yale will leave him after the epidemic ends; all the while, Yale, the development director for an art gallery, tries to acquire several high-profile pieces from the great aunt of his best friend Fiona. The great aunt, Nora, knew a wide array of famous artists of the 1910s, who died suddenly and brutally in WWI, and over the course of the novel, the tragic stories of the older generation are indirectly paralleled with those of Yale and his friends. The final storyline follows Fiona as she tries to track down her estranged daughter in Paris and make sense of the fact that she, like Nora, has outlived all her closest friends from her twenties. By the end I wasn't convinced Nora or her friends needed to be in this novel. Her subplot slows the pace down, without adding much, and the connection between WWI and the AIDS epidemic is muddled at best. But passages of The Great Believers are heart wrenching, and Yale's story at least is well structured and affecting.
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Joe
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Oct 15, 2018 09:49AM
Great review! This has been on my list for a while, looking forward to bumping it up my TBR now.
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Thanks, Joe! Interested to hear what you think of it, after you’ve had the chance to read it.
I have this on my shelf and hope to get to it before the end of the year.
Hope you enjoy it if you do get to it, Jenny! There were parts about the book that I really enjoyed and others I found tedious.
I saw other reviewers also question if Nora was necessary to the book. I think she is crucial to the book. I know of no other books in the “AIDS Canon” that attempt to look at the epidemic from its appearance in the US to the present. It is in this character that we can see how this disease continues to have an impact on survivors, caretakers, and others. I think because AIDS has become manageable we have forgotten how devastating it was—and still is—for those who experienced it in the 80s. Nora reminds us that it still affects people—even those who were/are negative—and their relationships.
It would be interesting to know if the age of readers influences their thoughts. I am of the generation that directly experienced the devastation of this disease. I know it affected—and still affects—my relationships even though I physically escaped the plague. So. much sadness, anger, and fear originated with those years. In short, I found her novel haunting. The passages where she compares the disease to WWI were so powerful. I loudly yelled “yes, you get it” when I read those pages.
It’s possible age affected my experience of this! I can see why Fiona was in the novel—though I wished her plot would have focused more on her memories of the eighties and nineties. The mystery of why her daughter left home was interesting at first, but I felt like that storyline fizzled out as the novel unfolded and distracted from what was compelling about those sections—how Fiona was haunted by the past.But the subplot in the eighties about Nora and acquiring the art didn’t do a lot for me. I think I would’ve liked the novel better had I read it at my own pace instead of listening to it. I did find many of the passages toward the end moving.
Michael I completely agree! The Claire and Nora subplots were, to me, distractions that almost ruined the book for me.
I think you're spot on, here: there are stretches of beauty, and stretches I just wanted cut out.
Kathy wrote: "Michael I completely agree! The Claire and Nora subplots were, to me, distractions that almost ruined the book for me."Glad to see someone else felt this way! The Nora subplot especially felt bizarre to me - I still can't figure out why it was there, months after having finished the novel.
Peter wrote: "I think you're spot on, here: there are stretches of beauty, and stretches I just wanted cut out."I think had the novel been about half the length, focusing mostly on the '80s, it would have been much stronger. I wouldn't have minded the Claire subplot even, had it been focused on her memories of the epidemic rather than her missing daughter.
Yes, I thought the cult stuff was the weakest, and most unnecessary. That said, I still remember the strong bits, and I do have a soft spot for a big and messy modern novel.
I spot on agree with your review. There were definitely good parts of the book, but the sub-story within a story drove me crazy. I was transfixed with the ‘80’s segments. I didn’t understand the necessity for Nora, Claire or Fiona’s present day saga. It took away from the story, imo anyway. The back and forth was distracting, and really turned me off to this book being the epic novel I imagined it to be.
