“He opened the door to the hall and heard a collective silence, as if they were all holding their breath, listening to someone make a speech… Only…there was no one in the living room… The foggy, ridiculous idea came to him that the world had ended, that some apocalypse had swept through and forgotten him.” His friends have in fact vanished, but not from an apocalypse. When Yale returns to the party, he notices something is very wrong. He can’t grasp the escalating AIDS epidemic, but he knows it’s bad. In the hush of the bathroom, he finds himself mentally reviewing his “sick list,” ticking off the names of friends who aren’t careful enough, friends who might get sick, friends who might already be sick.

His stomach a mess.” He heads upstairs to splash cool water on his face and take stock of his sorrows. “How had forgotten he hated rum? It always made him moody, dehydrated, hot. As they flood Richard’s living room in a display of grief and tenderness, Yale loses his grip. The celebration is loud, boozy, and attended by all the men-and plucky Fiona, Nico’s devastated younger sister-who will come to populate the pages of The Great Believers. Nico’s family has announced that his friends are not welcome at the funeral, so Richard has gathered everyone at his Lincoln Park house to eat canapes, watch a slideshow, and drink a considerable amount of rum in a nod to Nico’s Cuban heritage. Yale Tishman and his partner, Charlie, are at a party to honor the life of Nico, the first in their close-knit circle to die of AIDS. The opening chapter of The Great Believers is a beautiful, chilling foretaste of the epic story that awaits in Rebecca Makkai’s new novel. Well-of a hopeless, doomed, selfish, ridiculous love, but what other kind had ever existed?”

The great believers book review