Rebecca Makkai's novel moves between Chicago in 1985, as the AIDS epidemic devastates a close circle of friends, and Paris in 2015, where one of those friends' mothers searches for her estranged daughter decades later. The New York Times named it one of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century in 2024. Some readers have argued the 2015 half of the book should have been cut entirely. This review covers the real, sourced praise and the real, sourced structural criticism.
What the Book Actually Is
In 1985 Chicago, Yale Tishman and his circle of friends watch the AIDS crisis take one person after another from their community, with Yale himself facing his own diagnosis risk. Thirty years later in Paris, Fiona -- sister of one of the friends who died -- searches for her own estranged adult daughter while confronting how thoroughly the AIDS years shaped the rest of her life.
About Rebecca Makkai and Why She Wrote This
Rebecca Makkai has lived her whole life in the Chicago area, and that grounding shaped how The Great Believers came together. She's said she originally set out to write about a woman who'd been an artist's model in 1920s Paris, but realized that character couldn't plausibly live much past the 1980s, so she moved the timeline there -- and once she was writing about the art world in 1980s Chicago, she's said AIDS had to be at least a presence in the book. Researching further, she was struck by how little had been written specifically about the AIDS crisis in Chicago; she's noted that even major nonfiction histories of the epidemic sometimes don't index the city at all, despite it being the third-largest in the country at the time. That gap became a deliberate choice: rather than set the novel in San Francisco or New York, the two cities most associated with the crisis in popular memory, she wrote the story readers would least expect, built on primary research including old issues of Chicago's gay weekly newspapers and extended interviews with people who lived through the era. She's also said she worried, as a heterosexual woman, about her standing to tell this story, but came to see her outsider position as something that let her bring a different, more holistic angle to a widely told tragedy.
What Critics Actually Said
The Great Believers was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, won the American Library Association's Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was named one of the ten best books of 2018 by The New York Times. In 2024, The New York Times went further, naming it one of 'The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.' Reviewers praised Makkai as 'a wily, seductive writer' who brings genuine sympathy to a wide range of characters while examining the price of memory and art's role in preserving what's at risk of being lost.
Where Real Reviews Pushed Back
The most specific, recurring criticism concerns the dual-timeline structure itself: one reviewer argued directly that 'a single timeline would have been better,' allowing more space to develop the 1985 characters, and described the 2015 Paris storyline as comparatively 'dull and not believable.' Another critique noted the characters in the 2015 timeline 'all speak alike' and aren't as distinctly drawn as the 1985 ensemble. Not every reviewer agrees -- some found the dual structure's 'time travel of memory' effect genuinely powerful -- but the criticism is specific and recurring enough to take seriously.
The Real Chicago AIDS Crisis Behind the Novel
The 1985 timeline is grounded in the actual history of Chicago's Boystown neighborhood during the AIDS epidemic, a chapter Makkai has said was strikingly underdocumented compared with the more familiar San Francisco and New York narratives. Real historical events anchor the novel, including ACT UP demonstrations that took place on Chicago's streets in April 1990, which Makkai researched directly rather than inventing from scratch. Her research process included reading extensively through back issues of Chicago's gay weekly newspapers from the period and conducting dozens of extended interviews with people who lived through the epidemic there -- work she's said was necessary precisely because so little of that specific city's experience had been recorded elsewhere.
Why Makkai Reinvented Real Institutions Instead of Real People
Makkai has been direct about a specific ethical line she drew while researching: she wanted to write about real events without writing about real people. In practice, that meant inventing a fictional gay newspaper rather than depicting an actual Chicago outlet, and creating fictional ACT UP organizers and additional characters rather than fictionalizing real activists by name. The historical scaffolding -- the protests, the epidemic's timeline, the devastation to a specific community -- is drawn from documented fact; the people living through it in the novel are hers.
On Memory, Art, and What Survives
Critics have consistently pointed to memory as the novel's real subject as much as the epidemic itself, describing a kind of "time travel of memory" running through both timelines. Yale Tishman's day job, bringing a collection of 1920s paintings into a Chicago gallery, gives the book a recurring meditation on what art preserves and what it can't: both the 1985 and 2015 storylines build toward a climactic art exhibition, and the novel repeatedly asks what happens once a story, or a person, is gone, and who's left to carry the memory of them forward. That question is also where the novel's dual timeline earns its clearest defenders, whatever the structural criticism above -- Fiona's 2015 search for her daughter only carries weight because thirty years of unprocessed grief are behind it.
Key Takeaways
- Makkai has lived in the Chicago area her whole life and deliberately set the novel there instead of the more commonly depicted San Francisco or New York, after finding the city's AIDS history strikingly underdocumented
- Her research included dozens of extended interviews and deep reading in Chicago's gay weekly newspapers from the 1980s, though she invented fictional institutions and activists rather than depicting real people by name
- The novel incorporates real historical events, including ACT UP demonstrations that took place in Chicago in April 1990
- Memory functions as a central theme alongside the epidemic itself, with both timelines building toward art exhibitions that ask what survives loss and who carries it forward
- Makkai, who isn't gay, has said she worried about her standing to tell this story but came to see her outsider perspective as adding a distinct, valuable angle to it
Who This Book Is Actually For
Readers who want a deeply researched, emotionally serious novel about the AIDS crisis and its long aftermath, and who are comfortable with a dual-timeline structure even if one half draws mixed reviews.
Who Should Read Something Else Instead
If dual-timeline structures where one thread is markedly weaker than the other bother you, the sourced criticism above about the 2015 Paris sections is worth knowing before you start.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award
- Named one of The New York Times' '100 Best Books of the 21st Century' in 2024
- Winner of the ALA Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
- Strong 4.30 out of 5 rating across more than 170,000 Goodreads ratings
- Deeply researched, emotionally serious treatment of the AIDS crisis rarely centered this fully in mainstream fiction
Cons:
- Multiple reviewers argue the 2015 Paris timeline is weaker than the 1985 Chicago storyline
- Some readers specifically wanted a single timeline rather than the dual structure
- The 2015-era supporting characters are criticized by some reviewers as underdeveloped and indistinct from one another
Frequently Asked Questions
What awards has this book won or been nominated for?
A Pulitzer Prize finalist, a National Book Award finalist, winner of the ALA Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and named one of The New York Times' 100 Best Books of the 21st Century in 2024.
What's the actual Goodreads rating?
4.30 out of 5 from roughly 170,700 ratings as of this writing.
Is the dual timeline necessary?
This is genuinely contested -- some reviewers found the 1985/2015 structure powerful, while others argue a single 1985 timeline would have been stronger.
Is this a hard read given the subject matter?
Yes -- it deals directly and unflinchingly with the AIDS crisis and its losses, though reviewers consistently note it's handled with real emotional care rather than gratuitous suffering.
Sources & Further Reading
- Goodreads -- The Great Believers (aggregate rating, reader reviews)
- The Pulitzer Prizes -- Fiction finalist
- National Book Foundation -- Fiction finalist
- American Library Association -- Andrew Carnegie Medal winner
- WBUR Here & Now -- Rebecca Makkai author interview on researching the Chicago AIDS crisis
- PositiveLifes.com — free inspirational and life-changing PDF books
Final Verdict
The Great Believers earned some of the most substantial, verifiable recognition of any book in this batch -- Pulitzer and National Book Award finalist status, an ALA Carnegie Medal, and a spot on The New York Times' 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. The sourced criticism about the weaker 2015 timeline is real and specific, not a dismissal of the book's overall achievement. If you want a serious, deeply researched novel about the AIDS crisis and its long shadow, this is among the most decorated options available, dual-timeline tradeoffs and all.
Buy Day rating: 8.7/10