Rebecca Makkai
Author of The Great Believers
About the Author
Rebecca Makkai is an author, based in the Chicago area. She holds as MA from Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English and a BA from Washington and Lee University. She was an elementary Montessori teacher for twelve years before becoming a writer. She is on the MFA faculties of Sierra show more Nevada College and Northwestern University. And she is the Artistic Director of StoryStudio Chicago. She has had her short fiction published in such anthologies as The Pushcart Prize XLI, The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, New Stories from the Midwest, and Best American Fantasy. She has a short story collection entitled Music for Wartime. She won the 2017 Pushcart prize for short fiction. Her first novel was entitled The Borrower. Her other novels include The Hundred-Year House and The Great Believers. She won the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for fiction with her novel, The Great Believers. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: © Ryan Fowler
Works by Rebecca Makkai
The Briefcase 1 copy
The Worst You Ever Feel 1 copy
No title 1 copy
Ploughshares Summer 2024 1 copy
Marii Încrezători 1 copy
Associated Works
Astoria to Zion: Twenty-Six Stories of Risk and Abandon from Ecotone's First Decade (2014) — Contributor — 13 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1978-04-20
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Skokie, Illinois, USA
- Places of residence
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Education
- Washington and Lee University (BA)
Middlebury College (Bread Loaf School of English) - Occupations
- teacher
- Short biography
- Rebecca Makkai (born April 20, 1978) is an American novelist and short-story writer. Her first novel, The Borrower, was released in June 2011. It was a Booklist Top Ten Debut, an Indie Next pick, an O Magazine selection, and one of Chicago Magazine's choices for best fiction of 2011. It was translated into seven languages. Her short stories have been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 and as well as in ″The Best American Nonrequired Reading″" 2009 and 2016; she received a 2017 Pushcart Prize and a 2014 NEA fellowship. Her fiction has also appeared in Ploughshares, Tin House, The Threepenny Review, New England Review, and Shenandoah. Her nonfiction has appeared in Harpers and on Salon.com and the New Yorker website. Makkai's stories have also been featured on Public Radio International's Selected Shorts and This American Life. Her second novel, The Hundred-Year House, is set in the Northern suburbs of Chicago, and was published by Viking/Penguin in July 2014, having received starred reviews in Booklist, Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. It won the 2015 Novel of the Year award from the Chicago Writers Association and was named a best book of 2014 by BookPage. Her short story collection, Music for Wartime, was published by Viking in June 2015. A starred and featured review in Publishers Weekly said, "Though these stories alternate in time between WWII and the present day, they all are set, as described in the story “Exposition,” within “the borders of the human heart”—a terrain that their author maps uncommonly well.” The Kansas City Star wrote that "if any short story writer can be considered a rock star of the genre, it's Rebecca Makkai."
Her novel about the AIDS epidemic in 1980s Chicago, titled The Great Believers was published by Viking/Penguin Random House in June 2018. The Great Believers won the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction. It was also a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, and won the LA Times Book Prize, the ALA Stonewall Award, and the Chicago Review of Books Award.
Members
Discussions
The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai - Jun 2011 LTER in Reviews of Early Reviewers Books (October 2011)
Reviews
I listened to this in audiobook format.
This novel follows a group of close friends, gay men, through 1985-early 1990s Chicago. The AIDS epidemic is in full swing and, one by one, they succumb, cared for in turn by Fiona, the little sister of the first to die. Meanwhile in 2015 Fiona is trying to locate her estranged daughter. This book, A Finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, is difficult to summarize as it just encompasses so much-- friendship, mothers and daughters, love, guilt, shame, hope, legacy, but mostly the decadal fallout of tragedy and trauma. It is an excellent novel--very well written, well paced, fantastic character development. I cannot imagine anyone would read this and not have it hit a nerve and maybe produce some tears.… (more)
This novel follows a group of close friends, gay men, through 1985-early 1990s Chicago. The AIDS epidemic is in full swing and, one by one, they succumb, cared for in turn by Fiona, the little sister of the first to die. Meanwhile in 2015 Fiona is trying to locate her estranged daughter. This book, A Finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, is difficult to summarize as it just encompasses so much-- friendship, mothers and daughters, love, guilt, shame, hope, legacy, but mostly the decadal fallout of tragedy and trauma. It is an excellent novel--very well written, well paced, fantastic character development. I cannot imagine anyone would read this and not have it hit a nerve and maybe produce some tears.… (more)
My Audible library is overflowing, so sometimes I just pick the book that has been waiting patiently the longest to read next. The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai had been sitting in my library for so long, I couldn’t remember what had piqued my interest in this book. As I started listening, I wasn’t sure if I was going to read the entire book or bail. The story begins in 1985 at a funeral reception held in someone's house. It felt like I stumbled into the deepest moment of a person’s life, and I had no idea what was going on. Based on the description, I suspected this was going to be one of those really long books that dove deeply into the characters’ lives, and I was going to be glad I finished it. And I was right.
The Great Believers is a dual-timeline story: 1985 Chicago, at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, and 2015 Paris. Initially, I thought these different settings were strange as they felt disconnected, but it all made sense in the end. The story is told from the perspective of two main characters. It begins with Yale Tishman, a young gay man, attending his best friend Nico’s funeral in 1985. Yale works for an art gallery in Chicago and is trying to acquire a rare collection of paintings from the 1920s. The story follows Yale’s promising career, his relationship, and his circle of friends. The crisis of the AIDS epidemic is central to Yale’s story. Fiona is the second main character — she is Nico’s younger sister, so the reader gets to know Fiona in both timelines. Fiona remains friends with Nico’s friends and is closest to Yale. During the Paris timeline, Fiona is looking for her daughter who disappeared when she joined a cult.
She stays with a friend who’s a famous photographer she knew back in 1980s Chicago. I really liked the 1980s Fiona, and it was interesting to see how the AIDS epidemic affected her life and how she dealt with it as she explored her relationship with her daughter.
It took me a while to get absorbed by the story. There are a lot of characters, and it was a bit tricky to keep track of how they all connected, especially since the story jumps between two different timelines. I really liked the length of the book, which was more than 18 hours on audio.
It allowed for the story to be detailed, and gave me time to bond with the characters. This book is definitely emotionally charged, and I’m so glad I finished it. Even though it was a tearjerker, it left me feeling both sad and hopeful for the characters. And the narration by Michael Crouch was absolutely fantastic!
I have photos and additional information that I'm unable to include here. It can all be found on my blog, in the link below.
A Book And A Dog… (more)
The Great Believers is a dual-timeline story: 1985 Chicago, at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, and 2015 Paris. Initially, I thought these different settings were strange as they felt disconnected, but it all made sense in the end. The story is told from the perspective of two main characters. It begins with Yale Tishman, a young gay man, attending his best friend Nico’s funeral in 1985. Yale works for an art gallery in Chicago and is trying to acquire a rare collection of paintings from the 1920s. The story follows Yale’s promising career, his relationship, and his circle of friends. The crisis of the AIDS epidemic is central to Yale’s story. Fiona is the second main character — she is Nico’s younger sister, so the reader gets to know Fiona in both timelines. Fiona remains friends with Nico’s friends and is closest to Yale. During the Paris timeline, Fiona is looking for her daughter who disappeared when she joined a cult.
She stays with a friend who’s a famous photographer she knew back in 1980s Chicago. I really liked the 1980s Fiona, and it was interesting to see how the AIDS epidemic affected her life and how she dealt with it as she explored her relationship with her daughter.
It took me a while to get absorbed by the story. There are a lot of characters, and it was a bit tricky to keep track of how they all connected, especially since the story jumps between two different timelines. I really liked the length of the book, which was more than 18 hours on audio.
It allowed for the story to be detailed, and gave me time to bond with the characters. This book is definitely emotionally charged, and I’m so glad I finished it. Even though it was a tearjerker, it left me feeling both sad and hopeful for the characters. And the narration by Michael Crouch was absolutely fantastic!
I have photos and additional information that I'm unable to include here. It can all be found on my blog, in the link below.
A Book And A Dog… (more)
I Have Some Questions For You is by award winning author, Rebecca Makkai. When I read the description of the subject matter of the book, I knew I would enjoy reading it. The story takes place at a boarding school. Bodie was a former student and returned ~20 years later to teach for a 2-week winter break course. When she was a student, a classmate, Thalia was murdered and a suspect, Omar was quickly tagged as the killer. Bodie has had doubts all of these years if the right person was actually convicted since many of the facts do not add up and her intuition is pointing to someone else. The book’s main story is about trying to piece the facts together and, if possible, point to the real killer.
Having attended boarding school myself, I could see that Rebecca Makkai is very familiar with the common culture and behaviors (aside from murder) that make up the daily life for those living on campus. She, in fact, attended boarding school and later returned to live on campus along with her husband who took a teaching job at the same boarding school that she attended. However, the book is about an entirely different fictitious school but the common culture sounds very familiar.
Makkai is a master storyteller. She easily transitions from the present day to the past and even has Bodie having a one-sided conversation in her head with the person who she thinks is responsible for the murder. She also develops many subplots and character development that weave in and out throughout the book.
One thing that I found chilling was that Makkai mentions several other real cases that are in all of our shared knowledge of violence against women. Seeing the distinguishing facts surrounding real cases show how common this is and nothing really changes. There is a lot of messaging here that is very insightful about our culture in general.
I don’t want to go into the subplots or themes since I think that would become spoilers.
This book is a page turner and holds your interest until the very end. I would highly recommend this book.… (more)
Having attended boarding school myself, I could see that Rebecca Makkai is very familiar with the common culture and behaviors (aside from murder) that make up the daily life for those living on campus. She, in fact, attended boarding school and later returned to live on campus along with her husband who took a teaching job at the same boarding school that she attended. However, the book is about an entirely different fictitious school but the common culture sounds very familiar.
Makkai is a master storyteller. She easily transitions from the present day to the past and even has Bodie having a one-sided conversation in her head with the person who she thinks is responsible for the murder. She also develops many subplots and character development that weave in and out throughout the book.
One thing that I found chilling was that Makkai mentions several other real cases that are in all of our shared knowledge of violence against women. Seeing the distinguishing facts surrounding real cases show how common this is and nothing really changes. There is a lot of messaging here that is very insightful about our culture in general.
I don’t want to go into the subplots or themes since I think that would become spoilers.
This book is a page turner and holds your interest until the very end. I would highly recommend this book.… (more)
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A pretty good mystery with some solid twists. Recommended if you like that sort of thing.