Rebecca Makkai
Rebecca Makkai's newest novel is The Great Believers.
From her Q&A with Rachel León at the Chicago Review of Books:
Rachel León: As someone who lost someone to AIDS, I wondered if you too had a personal experience with losing someone to AIDS in the 80s or 90s?Learn more about the author and her work at Rebecca Makkai's website, Facebook page and Twitter perch.
Rebecca Makkai: I have a few friends who are HIV positive and my parents had some colleagues who died of AIDS, but it wasn’t anyone I knew personally; I just knew it was happening. I was born in 1978 so as a kid, it seemed like the biggest most important thing that had ever happened. I also think as kids we didn’t dismiss it as happening to those people over there. It felt much more immediate and I don’t think we had the prejudice going into our view of things that adults might have had. So there was that, but also by the time we got to high school in the nineties, all of our Sex Ed was about HIV. I think when I talk to people very close to my own age, even when they didn’t lose someone close to them, it makes a lot of sense that this would be something I’d be drawn to. Whereas for people quite a bit older or quite a bit younger they’re left wondering why I’d write about this, which is so odd to me. Why are we not all writing about this? This is a huge thing that’s happened in our lifetime.
Rachel León: I was born in 1979, so that makes sense.
Rebecca Makkai: Yeah, so you get it. The reaction I’m getting from people, especially with people much older who weren’t effected directly by the crisis, if I tell them what I’m publishing, they’re like, ‘Oh I remember that time,’ as if I’ve just reminded them about something they haven’t thought about in decades, which is probably the case. That’s shocking to me. And with people younger than me, they’re actually...[read on]
My Book, The Movie: The Borrower.
The Page 69 Test: The Hundred-Year House.
My Book, The Movie: The Hundred-Year House.
My Book, The Movie: The Great Believers.
--Marshal Zeringue
