The author Rebecca Makkai has come up a couple times already in this space, first in a quick mention regarding the character names in her excellent recent novel, I Have Some Questions for You, then later in a discussion of the structure of suspense in literature. Also she has a blog that’s included in the Cultural section of our links page.
This all came up because I just finished another Makkai novel, The Great Believers, which I also liked a lot. I’d say I “enjoyed” it–I think that’s an accurate description of a book that I read a few pages every day at bedtime until one day I just sat on the couch and read the last 30 pages–except that the story is sad, so in that sense the reading experience wasn’t quite enjoyable. In any case, I recommend it.
The book did something with time that really worked. Chapters alternated between 1985 and 2015, where you see some of the characters from the earlier time period reappear. This gives some perspective (as logician and sometime Chicagoan Raymond Smullyan memorably said, “To know the past, one must first know the future.”). But it’s not just that. There’s some way in which placing the main action in the 1985, but situating the story in the present time, makes the people in 1985 seem more alive then the would feel in a straight-up historical novel. I’m not quite sure why this would be, and I don’t think the parallel-time-line thing always works–indeed, I’ve read novels that use it and it seems more like a gimmick, underlying the artificiality of the story–but in this case I found it to be very moving.
One more thing. From the author description:
Makkai is on the MFA faculties of the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe and Northwestern University, and is the artistic director of StoryStudio Chicago. She lives on the campus of the midwestern boarding school where her husband teaches, and in Vermont.
Which leaves me with some questions:
1. If it’s “the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe,” why don’t they just call it “the University of Nevada, Lake Tahoe”?
2. I wonder if she knows the story of the torment executioners at the University of Nevada, Reno? I have a feeling that the characters in The Great Believers would be very amused by the idea of a torment executioner.
3. Makkai has 3 jobs in 2 different states, and then also lives in a third state? How does she do it? I’m reminded of this guy:
Niall Ferguson, MA, D.Phil., is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University. He is a resident faculty member of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies. He is also a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
I guess some people just have a lot of energy. I’m pretty sure that Ferguson would hate Makkai’s book, though, given that he’s famous for a homophobic slur and The Great Believers is a sympathetic portrayal of gay life.
I found this a very good book. I was a young, somewhat naive, doctor when AIDS struck. The early days were full of confusion, doubt, and uncertainty. There were sincere disagreements about causation, and once a viral cause was identified there was controversy between the team in Paris and the team in Bethesda over who deserved the credit for the discovery. In retrospect, it was only a few years from the start of the epidemic to the identification of the virus, and a couple more years to the first antiretroviral drugs. Those years were marked by uncertainty for us professionals and a back and forth reaction of compassion oscillating with disdain by the general public.
This book property focuses on the community of the at risk group. Narratives of the time written by professionals tend to have a doctor as hero theme. It is important to realize what the patients were going through. Patients are actually more important than doctors.
A complete history of this illness would require a careful look through the patients’ eyes. That’s probably true for every illness.
I join Dr. Gelman in recommending this book. Yes, it is a novel, but it presents real truth in a compelling way.
> If it’s “the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe,” why don’t they just call it “the University of Nevada, Lake Tahoe”?
Probably for the same reason that “the University of California, San Francisco at Fresno” is not just called “the University of California, Fresno”.
Carlos:
Wow, that’s also weird. You’d think they’d call it the University of California, Fresno. Makes no sense to me.
Because University of California, Fresno would imply that it’s a full-fledged University of California campus, like UC Berkeley, UC Riverside, UCLA, etc. It is not, nor is it a full-fledged graduate / medical school like UCSF (the only one of its sort). Rather, it’s a satellite of UCSF.
It’s fairly common for University X to have a site at Y, and not to call it University of Y. The latter would be very confusing. (Not to mention, University X wants the recognition of running the thing at Y!)
When I was in grad school at the University of Illinois (in Champaign-Urbana), I remember they did things to make it very clear when something was affiliated with them as opposed to University of Illinois-Chicago (and vice versa). Same overall system but very different levels of professors, research, teaching, etc. If the Chicago folks had another campus in Evanston or something, they would certainly call it University of Illinois-Chicago at Evanston. It makes it clear that it’s run by Chicago, not Champaign, and that it isn’t a ‘full’ campus equal with Champaign or Chicago.
The University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe is in Incline Village, a 40 minute drive from Reno. The campus used to be a small independent college, but it went bankrupt during Covid. Now it is a satellite campus of the Univ. Nevada Reno, where students can come for weekend courses or one-semester courses.
https://www.unr.edu/lake-tahoe/academic-programs