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E's Reviews > The Great Believers
The Great Believers
by
by
One of the most heart-wrenching novels I've ever read. If you don't feel the same way, don't talk to me about it.
Having seen Angels in America, Pride and several documentaries about the AIDS crisis, I simply could not fathom being this surprised by one story. But that's what great novels do. Get you to adore many characters, want to throttle others, and appreciate how even - or perhaps especially - your favorites are called out on their own flaws and are forced into self-doubt.
Many novels describe death from the visitor's chair in the hospital room, from the hospital bed, from the memorial and the dividing up of belongings, from the lives that go on, but not all of them do it in a way that conjures up every one of your own personal experiences in such places until you can't hold back the tears. And few novels get you to realize - fully realize - that people you love really lived through all this and this is what they meant when they said they never expected to live past 40. A photo of me as an infant next to these loved ones was a moment of joy and innocence captured just a month after HIV had been identified in Paris.
It's like the moment you look at your child and truly realize he's the very same age his grandfather was when he was forced to literally run from bombs. We doom scroll constantly past death and destruction. But books like these stop you in your tracks, leaving you wondering how you really managed to skim past it before.
Having seen Angels in America, Pride and several documentaries about the AIDS crisis, I simply could not fathom being this surprised by one story. But that's what great novels do. Get you to adore many characters, want to throttle others, and appreciate how even - or perhaps especially - your favorites are called out on their own flaws and are forced into self-doubt.
Many novels describe death from the visitor's chair in the hospital room, from the hospital bed, from the memorial and the dividing up of belongings, from the lives that go on, but not all of them do it in a way that conjures up every one of your own personal experiences in such places until you can't hold back the tears. And few novels get you to realize - fully realize - that people you love really lived through all this and this is what they meant when they said they never expected to live past 40. A photo of me as an infant next to these loved ones was a moment of joy and innocence captured just a month after HIV had been identified in Paris.
It's like the moment you look at your child and truly realize he's the very same age his grandfather was when he was forced to literally run from bombs. We doom scroll constantly past death and destruction. But books like these stop you in your tracks, leaving you wondering how you really managed to skim past it before.
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