He's begun a new job at a prestigious Chicago art gallery and has just received a letter that details a permanent collection held by Fiona's aunt.

The first half of the novel has us siding with Yale. This isn't San Francisco or New York: 'thank God things move slower here.' It isn't too soon to get infected, by a long shot. Yale feels a mixture of relief, but as Richard becomes his anchor, he achieves the clarity of retrospection. She tells of the community meetings, safe sex courses, homophobia, and the vulnerability of this group of strong-minded, emotionally brittle men. This is only the beginning of Makkai's remarkable novel, a subtle, heartbreaking story that builds over time and has many transitions grounded in the narrator's research. Fiona would fly back to that time and place 'in a heartbeat.' Catapulted back into her unencumbered youth, ensconced in Richard's apartment on the Ile Saint-Louis, Fiona begins her search for Claire-but not before she associates Richard with her past and her life with Nico, Yale and Richard, as well as Nico's lover, Terrence and friends, Teddy Naples and Asher Glass. She also wants to visit her daughter, Claire, who vanished from her life several years ago. In 2015, Fiona embarks on a new mission of mercy, heading to Paris to stay with Richard Campo, now a renowned artist, but whom Fiona knew from her days in Chicago. Everything Fiona has experienced in life has prepared and strengthened, and even toughened her for Nico's final goodbye.

Fiona has written off her family as thoroughly as they'd written Nico off in the years before his illness. Yale's fears of dying extinguish all that he is and affirms the belief that he is unworthy of happiness. He's cultivated numbness to the AIDS epidemic as it takes hold. Yale turns to hug Nico's sister Fiona and then his boyfriend, Richard. Yale Tishman, the man character in Makkai's story, attends the funeral for his best friend, Nico. It was a decade of bigotry and of divisive politics. The 1980s was a time of great sadness and anger, a time of irrefutable tenderness. Book review: Rebecca Makkai's *The Great Believers*

The great believers review