The Great Believers

By: Rebecca Makkai

Narrated by: Michael Crouch

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST

A New York Times TOP 10 BOOK OF 2018

LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER

ALA CARNEGIE MEDAL WINNER

THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD WINNER

Soon to Be a Major Television Event, optioned by Amy Poehler

“A page turner.... An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it’s like to live during times of crisis.” (The New York Times Book Review)

A dazzling new novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris, by the acclaimed author Rebecca Makkai.

In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico's funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister.

Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.

Named a Best Book of 2018 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, The Seattle Times, Bustle, Newsday, AM New York, BookPage, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Lit Hub, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, New York Public Library, and Chicago Public Library.

©2018 Rebecca Makkai (P)2018 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Makkai knits themes of loss, betrayal, friendship and survival into a powerful story of people struggling to keep their humanity in dire circumstances.” (People Magazine)

“Cultural revolutions of the past painfully reverberate in Rebecca Makkai’s deft third novel, The Great Believers, which captures both the devastation of the AIDS crisis in 1980s Chicago and the emotional aftershocks of those losses.” (Vogue)

"Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers is a page turner... among the first novels to chronicle the AIDS epidemic from its initial outbreak to the present - among the first to convey the terrors and tragedies of the epidemic’s early years as well as its course and repercussions...An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it’s like to live during times of crisis." (The New York Times Book Review)

Great reader

Sometimes you could hear an electronic slip that was not the fault of person reading. More the recording. Great Book!!

Wow

What an incredibly alive story. I cried more than not from the honesty, the crystal clear depictions of pain and reminiscence, and the flaws of the completely real characters.

Haunting Tale

Rebecca Makkai is a brilliant storyteller, and I didn't want her sad, haunting story of the effects of the AIDS crisis to end. Michael Crouch's expert narration deserves an award. He inhabited every character, and flawlessly went from one to the another. This beautiful novel, and Michael Crouch's performance will stay with me for a long time.

Long pauses

While I loved the story itself, if found myself distracted with what felt like impossibly long pauses between each sentence in the narration. I ended up speeding the pace of the playback which then took on a new distraction. I appreciated different voices for the characters, but unless they were fighting, I didn’t feel much emotion in the narration.

Narrator's pauses are distracting; listen at 1.25x

I really enjoyed this novel! This is, however, the only audiobook where I have ever increased the speed due to the narration. The narrator takes frequent, excessively long pauses that are frankly strange. Before I realized that increasing the speed smoothed this over I could not listen to it. BUT even with this rocky start I really enjoyed the story. Makkai makes you feel so much dread and affection and tension throughout the novel. She conveys regret and nostalgia as conflated phenomena in a very interesting way. Would recommend!

How am I ever going to recover from this book?

I haven’t been this affected by a book since Middlesex. There are books that change you, and this is one. This is also the best audiobook narration I’ve heard.

just read it

I don't think a narrator has ever complemented a book so well. The voice is just perfect, subtle and soft, and that goes so well with a story full of loss, sadness, but also vibrant, hopeful, thinking of a world that is full of change. to listen to the hardness of young gay men and their struggles with aids was tremendous; to think of the change we've come to now, even more so. I'm glad it's easier, though not easy, but the book reminded me in a powerful way that we still have a lot of fighting to do.

Stunning book

So full of life, love, pain and memory. Wonderful characters that become your friends. I savored every moment especially the closer I got to the end. Honest, lucid and extraordinary work of literature.

Great book, terrific narration

This is a beautiful story of love and heartbreak. And the narration!!!!! Michael Crouch really nails it here. I didn’t want to stop listening. It was just perfect.

Extraordinary

Amazing heartbreaking book. This will stay with me for a long time. The narrator...what can I say? I kept telling myself there had to be multiple people narrating, that one person could not be all those different people. This is a brilliant read I shall recommend always.