Finished: The Great Believers (Makkai) This was a very good book, and an extremely emotional one for me. The two main characters were Fiona, a 21 year old who has lost her brother, Nico, to AIDS, and one of his circle of friends, Yale, a 25 year old gay man who becomes her best friend. The book flip flops back and forth between 1985 and 2015. In 1985 we meet all the young gay guys living in Chicago and just becoming aware of and scared to death of this virus that is afflicting so many of them. I can't really do a massive recap because nearly every feeling that Fiona has about the death of her brother...from how she wailed and collapsed after she'd found out about his diagnosis, to how she carried him with her after his death, always wondering how he would react to any given scenario or new movie, etc....is a feeling that I have had, and still have about my own brother who died of AIDS. Unlike my brother, many of the guys have been completely outcast by their parents, as Nico has. Fiona is the one who has stuck by Nico's side since  he left home at 15, kicked out by his father because he was gay, and she only 11 years old. It's a beautifully written book that gets into the nitty gritty of the relationships, loves, friendships, families of all these young men, and at the same time, Fiona's relationship to all the guys...how she loved them all, and how that affected her relationship with her own daughter as she grew up. The guys: Nico and Terrence, lovers in love and both tragically dead within a few months of each other in 1985. Yale and his lover of 3 years, Charlie, are a focus for awhile. Charlie is always certain that Yale will cheat on him with someone better looking. They've both been tested for HIV and are negative. Teddy and Julian, the two hot looking guys who never want for relationships and play a dangerous game with their lives. It's a time when they're all just hearing about the disease and think the government is just trying to trick them into getting tested so it can keep their information. And, Richard, an older gentleman, but the photographer of the group who will go on to become famous for his artistic work. Yale works at the Briggs Museum at Northwestern University and loves his job! Fiona's grandmother has just insisted that he come and look at some personal pieces she has which were drawn and given to her by a few moderately famous artists when she was a model in Paris before WWI. He's skeptical, but when he realizes that they are truly worth alot of money, he arranges for the museum to make a show out of them. They are worth a couple of million dollars it turns out. On the night of Nico's memorial service for just his friends, since they weren't allowed at his funeral, Charlie mistakenly thinks that Yale has gone upstairs with Teddy and had sex. When Yale comes down after just laying upstairs for awhile because he's overwhelmed, Charlie has gone and doesn't come home all night. They manage to patch things up, but when the tragic news comes the next month that Julian has tested positive for HIV, Charlie flips out. Turns out HE cheated on Yale with Julian when he thought Yale was with Teddy. So, yes, Charlie ends up HIV positive. He never really apologizes to Yale for making him have to go through the agony of waiting three months to know for sure if he's HIV positive as well. They break up and don't really speak again until Charlie is on his deathbed. Yale tests negative, but like an IDIOT sleeps with his intern who he assumes is a virgin just realizing he's gay. Of course, he's not a virgin. He's actually been around quite a bit and ends up having infected Yale. It's so, so very sad three quarters of the way through the book when Yale, who you just love and who has been there for Fiona through thick and think, becomes infected. It's only 1987, so it's pretty much still a death sentence at this point. Julian, decides not to stay around there and have people watch him die, so he goes to Puerto Rico. By the time it's 2015, and Fiona is 51 and in Paris searching for her estranged daughter, Claire, all of these young men have died years ago...Nico, Terrence, Teddy, Julian, Charlie and then Yale, her dear Yale. What was worse, Yale died alone in the hospital. Fiona had been by his side day and night, but suddenly went into labor and was rushed upstairs to a difficult labor and emergency C-section. Two days later, Yale died all alone even as Fiona made the nurses go back and forth keeping her updated. She never forgave herself for not being there, and all this loss somehow made it's way into her daughter's life and made her feel as if her mother loved "the boys" far more than she ever loved her. During her first year of college, Claire runs off and joins a cult, and by 2015, she's out of the cult, but has a three year old daughter with the boy she dragged with her into the cult. She's been spotted in Paris, but refuses to have contact with Fiona or her father, who is divorced from Fiona. Enter Richard, who has become that famous photographer, who is about to do a show in Paris, and he invites Fiona to come there to stay as long as she likes to find Claire. Fiona does this and finally tracks down Claire, who doesn't want much to do with her, but does start to warm up to her. She finally tells her mother how she knows the day of her birth was the worst day of Fiona's life because it was the day that Yale died and she always loved Yale more than she loved her. Fiona is able to tell her that she was born before Yale died, and that she loves her very much. It's a very tentative reunion, but a few strides are made. Suddenly, though, Richard has a huge surprise for Fiona....in walks a 55 year old Julian!!! He had never perished from AIDS. One of those lucky few who sometimes it didn't devastate, he had made it until 1996 when the triple cocktail of drugs came out which was moderately successful for many victims. He was there, living and breathing. Fiona can't believe she's got Julian there to share the memories and the burden of those memories with. When he praises Fiona to her daughter, Claire feels the old familiar feelings of her mother, "St. Fiona" again, and withdraws a bit. As they all go to Richard's show opening, they see how many of the pictures are from the 1980's and are of all those friends they lost. There is even  video footage of Nico with Yale and Charlie that Fiona has never seen. As the book ends, Fiona decides to stay in Paris awhile to repair her relationship with Claire, and Claire wanders the show looking at all the pictures. So, a very good book, very draining for me. So very real some of the things that were said and done. For instance, as each of the sick guys went to the hospital AIDS floor when he got too sick to be at home, the nurses there on that floor were so compassionate. There was hair cutting day, and they would get their scalps and heads massaged by the nurses before getting their trims. I sat in the hospital room with my brother while he got his hair so lovingly washed and his scalp massaged by an angel of a nurse two days before he died. So many moments like that throughout the book that mirrored moments that I carry with me. I'm just emotionally drained after reading this book, but I'm so, so glad I did. And I will end is with this quote from the book that is so profound to me, so true.

"This disease has magnified all our mistakes. Some stupid thing you did when you were nineteen, the one time you weren't careful. and it turns out that was the most important day of your life."  💔