Award-winning author Rebecca Makkai gave a virtual Book Talk about her novel “The Great Believers” on March 16. This novel received numerous awards, including the LA Times Book Prize and the Chicago Review of Books Award, and was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
This event was sponsored by the Crim Dell Alumni Association. The Crim Dell Association is described by their page on the Alumni Association website as “William & Mary’s identity group representing alumni dedicated to expanding the freedom to love and express gender and sexual identity.”
“The Crim Dell Association is open to all alumni who identify as LGBTQ+ and allies or advocates,” Ivana Marshall M.Ed.’23, assistant director of Alumni Engagement and Inclusion Initiatives, said.
Marshall was the main organizer for this event and came into contact with Makkai through Jon Fox ’72, alumnus and member of the Crim Dell Association.
“I thought the Book Talk was a perfect switch up from what we usually do. We’ve done virtual pride parties, we have had DJs on Zoom, and it’s been a lot of fun. But, we haven’t had a lot of conversations, so this was an opportunity to offer something different with a really talented speaker and author,” Marshall said. “I really wanted to first make an offering to the LGBTQ+ Alumni community as well as students, faculty and staff, but also bring in non-LGBTQ+ community members. Rebecca’s book is perfect for this because she writes it as a non-queer woman to talk about LGBTQ+ experiences from a very honest place.”
“I really wanted to first make an offering to the LGBTQ+ Alumni community as well as students, faculty and staff, but also bring in non-LGBTQ+ community members. Rebecca’s book is perfect for this because she writes it as a non-queer woman to talk about LGBTQ+ experiences from a very honest place.”
Makkai opened up about her writing process for this novel during the event, which served as a personal touch that was admired by attendants.
“Hearing an author talk about her writing process to me was very fascinating, hearing how a novel like ‘The Great Believers’ started as one idea and took shape and evolved,” Paul Brockwell ’07, alumnus and member of the Crim Dell Association, said. “It was interesting and compelling, to me, to see the behind the scenes of a writer’s process.”
Makkai told attendants how the novel that fans know and love was not the novel she initially intended on writing. Makkai initially wanted to write about a woman who went to Paris and studied to be an artist, but ended up as an artist’s model instead. However, Makkai felt she needed something for her main character to truly speak up about.
“I realized that I had an opportunity to write about the AIDS epidemic,” Makkai said. “It’s something I have been interested in and concerned with my whole life.”
Makkai originally wanted her novel to focus on the art world and have AIDS be a personal struggle or background with one character. However, Makkai changed her mind.
“I started thinking about the fact that I don’t really necessarily like the knee-jerk move in a lot of art that makes AIDS a subplot,” Makkai said. “AIDS is something that happens to a secondary character and they die offstage, and then the main character learns that life is short. I really didn’t want to participate in that.”
Makkai’s willingness to focus on AIDS as more than a side plot, both in writing and discussion, stuck out to Marshall.
“Her goal was not to make people who suffer from this illness as secondary characters; they were the main characters in the story, you continued to hear and read about their lives, no matter what happened to them, and I thought that was phenomenal,” Marshall said.
Additionally, Makkai told attendants about her extensive amount of research that was needed to craft this novel. She told stories about her interviews with individuals who lived through the AIDS epidemic in Chicago in the 1980s and talked about the many stories that didn’t quite make it into the novel. She also discussed the struggles with trying to find sources in an environment that had little to no available resources.
“I think the thing that most resonated was the way Makkai left it at the end saying how she dug to get these stories and how important they were, and they still need to be told, and for the rest of us to go out and tell these stories and elicit these stories from other people so they don’t disappear,” Fox said.
Attendants of the Book Talk also reflected on the overall importance of Makkai’s work.
“The Book Talk itself was a great reminder of why it’s important to tell stories with inclusive narratives, especially from communities that have been overlooked or intentionally shut out from the dominant narrative in the past,” Brockwell said. “I think that William and Mary needs to hear things about their gay history and also share it among students, faculty, alums, and anybody else.”
“I think that William and Mary needs to hear things about their gay history and also share it among students, faculty, alums, and anybody else.”
The Crim Dell Association offers a wide range of events that are offered to anyone in the surrounding community, not just alums. The organization will also be hosting an event Thursday, April 21 in Colonial Williamsburg, featuring the play “Lady of McGloughlin,” a romance about two women in Colonial America, and will be followed by a conversation with the playwright and actors.