“He’d be the world’s luckiest man to stand there at the end of it all, to be the one left, trying to remember. The unluckiest too” (253).

This story moves from Chicago in the 1980s to Paris in 2015. And while I appreciated the 2015 chapters for how they were threaded together with the 1980s chapters, I really just wanted to stay in the chapters with Yale and Asher and Terrence—because despite this being about AIDS in the ‘80s and knowing the ending wouldn’t be pretty, I desperately wanted those brief moments of dreamlike euphoria amongst friends and lovers (before the death sentences were ultimately delivered) to live on.

One of my favorite things about this book is the way the people and politics and plot are expertly layered and connected and revealed, unfolding to show how Nora and Yale and Fiona are all united by art and war: WWI and the war of the AIDS epidemic. And so much of being caught up in a war is being witness to ugly death and then living with the absence of friends. The other side of this tragedy, though, that’s saturated throughout the story is indignation. I found myself really angry throughout this book, probably because it’s the history of my lifetime—not some “Lost Generation” narrative. And so I found myself completely incensed for how these men were shamed and treated; incensed by the randomness of the disease (who lives and who dies); incensed at our lack of knowledge and understanding and empathy and access to healthcare in the 1980s.

Like the best art and literature reveal, there’s often beauty from ashes, but this book blows up the ashes, incinerating your heart. That may not sound like a ringing endorsement (because, yes, there will be tears), but even though this is such a heartbreaking history, it’s such a worthwhile, important read.
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This is incredibly well written and I love the characters but the time switching seemed unnecessary to me. The plot lines in 2015 were thin and I didn't care about them. The 1985 sections were so good though! ( )

4.25 ( )

I'm sobbing, because this is a beautiful but sad illumination of the era - and some of the plot hit a bit close to home in terms of lived experience. Highly recommend... ( )

(51) I am late to the party with this novel - somehow I had never heard of it though it won awards and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2019. I loved her recent 'I Have Some Questions for You,' but this was nothing like that. This is a story of the AIDS epidemic in Chicago in the late 1980's and then the current day (2015) life of a woman who was an ally of a close knit group of young men who were stricken one by one - friends of her older brother, Nico, whose memorial opens the novel. Fiona nursed them all and now years later is trying to pick up the pieces of her life in Paris. Our sweet protagonist, Yale Tishman, is a 20-something gay man, newly employed as a fundraiser for Northwestern's art museum. He is on the cusp of everything good in life - love, success, he even sees a house he may like to buy in a city he has come to love with his "chosen family." He just had his first friend die from AIDS, but he and his love Charlie, Chicago's gay newspaper editor, have tested negative. Yale is a delight - the effortless contextual details Makkai weaves into his characterization are stellar.

I was about a decade younger than this 'lost generation' - but remember news reports about GRID. And I was in medical training by the mid-90's and saw the devastation of PML encephalopathy, CMV colitis, PCP pneumonia, toxoplasmosis in young people - men and women by that time. There were meds to stall progression and stave off infection but still and always a positive test was a death sentence. I remember the days of needing a signed permission form and in person pre and post test counseling - because maybe you don't want to know....I rotated for a month at San Francisco general hospital in the mid 90's. The book 'And the Band Played On' was devastating to me. So I was moved by this book, despite not having lost any friends or relatives. I don't think it was as tightly written as 'Questions.' Fiona baffled me and her parts dragged on for me. What was the point of the drunk guy on the plane? The French detective and breaking in to the apartment? Why invest the energy in that anti-climactic storyline. Her parts in 2015 with her daughter and the cult seemed out of place and irrelevant. I think if you had to toggle back & forth time, comparing and contrasting Nora and Ranko's perspective from the WW1 'lost generation' circa 1920's artists in Paris may have had more thematic integrity. The 2015 parts prevent a higher rating, because otherwise I fell in love with Yale and his life.

The author says at the end that she kept thinking of things that she wanted to tell Yale and that at the conclusion of the novel she felt like she had lost a friend. I can see that. She is a talented writer that walks a tightrope of literary, accessible, and engaging fiction all at the same time. Pulitzer finalist with a book-club pick bestseller vibe at the same time. This one made my heart heavy -- what a tragic waste. ( )