The Great Believers
In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup: bringing 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, he finds his partner is infected, and that he might even have the virus himself. 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 epidemic, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways the AIDS crisis affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. Yale and Fiona's stories unfold in incredibly moving and sometimes surprising ways, as both struggle to find goodness in the face of disaster.
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What you might want to know about The Great Believers
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In 1985, gallery director Yale Tishman watches his closest friends die of AIDS in the Boystown neighborhood of Chicago while chasing a once-in-a-career donation of 1920s Paris art. Thirty years later in Paris, Fiona Marcus, sister of one of those friends, hunts for her runaway daughter.
Yes. The Great Believers was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, winning the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.
Yes. A series adaptation has been announced. As of 2025, the project is in development.
The Great Believers was written by Rebecca Makkai, published in 2018 by Fleet.
The Great Believers is 528 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Great Believers takes most readers 8 to 11 hours to finish.
The Great Believers is a standalone novel by Rebecca Makkai, not part of a series.
The Great Believers is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.