LARB Radio Hour: Rebecca Makkai and the Burdens of History
Author Rebecca Makkai discusses her heralded new novel, "The Great Believers."
By LARB Radio HourJune 29, 2018
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Author Rebecca Makkai joins co-hosts Eric Newman, Medaya Ocher, and Kate Wolf to discuss her heralded new novel, The Great Believers, which tells two parallel and inter-related stories: one of the AIDS epidemic ravaging the Chicago gay community in the 1980s; the other, set in Paris in 2015, about a woman, Fiona, searching for her daughter, who has joined a cult. The connection is Fiona, who had become a caretaker for the men dying 30 years earlier in Chicago. Rebecca explains how she arrived at such a complex narrative structure (hint: it wasn't how the project started); as well as how she struggled with issues of cultural appropriation versus historical alliance.
LARB Contributor
The LARB Radio Hour is hosted by Eric Newman, Medaya Ocher, and Kate Wolf.