Rebecca Makkai Author Talk

Join Pulitzer Prize Finalist Rebecca Makkai for a reading and conversation about her award-winning novel, "The Great Believers," now out in paperback. Kelly Arbor, the Testing and Education Manager at VT CARES, the largest AIDS service organization in the state, will also speak, and pass out free condoms! 

With Q&A, refreshments, and book signing. Free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by VT CARES. 

Please RSVP below.

About the Book 

“Stirring, spellbinding and full of life.” —Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger’s Wife and Inland

FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE IN FICTION
WINNER OF THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL
WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR FICTION
WINNER OF THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

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.

The Great Believers has become a critically acclaimed, indelible piece of literature; it was selected as one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year, a Washington Post Notable Book, a Buzzfeed Book of the Year, a Skimm Reads pick, and a pick for the New York Public Library’s Best Books of the year.

About the Author

Rebecca Makkai is the author of The Borrower, The Hundred-Year House, which won the Novel of the Year Award from the Chicago Writers Association, and Music for Wartime. Her work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, Harper's, and Tin House, among others. She lives outside Chicago with her husband and two daughters.

About the Speaker

Kelly Arbor is the Testing and Education Manager at VT CARES, the largest AIDS service organization in the state.  VT CARES provides a variety of Harm Reduction services throughout Vermont, including: case management for HIV positive people, free HIV and HEP C testing, syringe support services, and community & school prevention education. Kelly is also a queer and trans person living with HIV and loves bringing the peer-to-peer elements of change artistry to the work.