Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction
The Great Believers
A novel moving between 1980s Chicago and present-day Paris, depicting the losses, friendships, and family ruptures left by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The memory of crisis continues to shape the present.
Work Information
A novel that looks at the time of crisis and the years that followed, connecting both into a single arc of loss.
The story alternates between a young man working in the art world and a woman, thirty years later, searching for her missing daughter. It goes beyond individual love and friendship to portray the long shadow an epidemic cast over a community.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Viking
- Published
- 2018-06-19
- Pages
- 432 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 15.75 x 3.56 x 23.62 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780735223523
- ISBN-10
- 0735223521
- Price
- 5171 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Genre Fiction/Coming of Age
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 novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris 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
Rebecca Makkai is the author of The Borrower , The Hundred-Year House , which won the Novel of the Year Award from the Chicago Writers Association, and Music for Wartime . Her work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories , Harper's , and Tin House , among others. She lives outside Chicago with her husband and two daughters.
Reviews
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Chicago's gay community
AIDS が危機的に蔓延したシカゴを舞台に、1985年～1992年の gay community の中で、生と性を模索する人々の痛切な人生を描いている。 中心にあるのは美術館のキュレーターである Yale と彼をとりまく人々の物語。収蔵すべき名品をもとめて、1910年代のある画家に魅惑され、彼の生涯を突きとめようとしている。この画家をめぐっての一つの物語がある。ジャーナリストや写真家、同僚たちとの関係も gay であるが故に哀切で、複雑。Yale の周囲で次々に AIDS に感染して友人が亡くなっていき、彼自身も常にその不安に脅かされている。やがてまきおこったシカゴでの gay の人々、ひいては貧困者たちをも含めた人々の権利や保障を求める ACT UP 運動など歴史的な事実も描かれる。 1985年～と交互に2015年の物語が語られる。こちらは Yale の親友だった今は亡き Nico の妹の Fiona が中心。Yale の友人でよき理解者だった Fiona は今51歳になって、行方不明の娘 Clair を探しにパリにやってくる。そこには有名な写真家となった Richard が住んでいて、まもなくシカゴ時代の gay community の変遷を撮った一大写真展を開こうとしている。Richard と Fiona を中心にそこに集う人々の日々のあいまに、1985年～のできごとが思い出され挿入されるという構成。2015年のパリはまさにテロリズムの攻撃にさらされ、社会的不安が増大しているとき。 Fiona と娘 Clairとの確執のゆくえ、Yale と Clair の関係････。 二つの時期の二つの街の歴史的背景とともに、人々の愛と友情、混沌と模索が描かれて、複雑な読後感が残った。 本書は The 10 Best Books of 2018 by the editors of The NY Times から。
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Engaging read, moving and human
I found this book really hard to put down. The characters were so well drawn and I really had to find out what happened to them. I also learned a lot about the times.
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très beau texte
livre dont les personnages sont attachants
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Masterpiece
I think this book is amazing, it is well written and page turning but mostly it does bring you back to another time and place, to another era. I was in tears for the characters of the books, and for everyone who was really there, diying of AIDS. The books is not always and only sad, though, and the main feeling is that is describing real people and real life.
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Amazing - thank you
First I wish to thank the author for such an amazing book. It succeeded to bring to life for a new generation a reminder of the brave & beautiful people who lived & succumbed to horror of AIDS. Well written but o so hard to read.
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Compelling and touching
I don't usually write reviews here as I read a lot, but I couldn't help writing a bit about this book because I really loved it. I couldn't put it down, it is very well written but easy to read at the same time. I found the characters very interesting and complex, which is hard to find these days, I think. I was really moved by the experiences of them all. I also learnt about what happened during the AIDS epidemic in Chicago and the US, it's really well documented, as the author explains at the end. Being the novel about AIDS and the gay community I found that it trascended these topics to talk about friendship, love, motherhood, forgiveness and many other topics that matter to all of us. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to spend a great time reading about interesting characters, relationships, friendship and love.