October - The Great Believers

This month we will read "The Great Believers" by Rebecca Makkai and then get together to discuss, whilst enjoying dinner together.

Event Fee: I have started collecting a suggested amount of $3 per person at each event. This helps offset the meetup fees charged to me as the organizer, now nearly $400 a year. Thanks to all who have donated in the past.

A reminder about RSVP'ing: Please be considerate to others and don't hold a spot if you are not sure about attending, as changing to a no last minute does not allow people on the waiting list enough time to read the book. I will give priority to regular members with a good attendance record.

*** The Great Believers - Rebecca Makkai: 432 pages
(Amazon Rating 4.5, Goodreads 4.2)

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.