It follows Fiona Marcus, a secondary character from the first storyline, as she searches for her estranged adult daughter and reckons with the lasting impact that the AIDS epidemic has had on her life.
[3][4] In 1985 Chicago, Yale Tishman and his long-term boyfriend, Charlie Keene, attend a party honoring the life of Nico Marcus, a close friend who has recently died of AIDS.
Overwhelmed by emotion during a slideshow featuring photos of Nico and his friends, Yale briefly retreats to a room upstairs and emerges to an abandoned house.
Later, she warns Yale that Frank Lerner, Nora's son, has enlisted the help of a major donor to block the donation from occurring so that he can inherit the collection.
However, the increasing number of gay men in their immediate circle and wider community testing positive for HIV, developing debilitating symptoms, and dying from AIDS places further stress on their relationship.
They enlist the help of donors Allen and Esmé Sharp and the university's general counsel, Herbert Snow, to financially and legally support the acquisition as soon as possible, as Nora is dying of congestive heart failure and her living descendants actively oppose her donation of the pieces.
Despite Frank's best efforts to stop them, the group is able to secure the deal and officially acquire Nora's complete set of paintings and sketches as part of the Brigg's permanent collection.
Yale returns home triumphant only to discover that Charlie has contracted HIV/AIDS, having secretly gotten tested after learning of the HIV-positive status of Julian Ames, an attractive young actor in their circle of friends.
On the night of Nico's memorial party, Charlie had sex with Julian in a fit of jealousy, believing that Yale had left with Teddy Naples, another friend of theirs.
Soon after this visit, Yale leaves the Brigg, sacrificing his job to appease the donor Frank had enlisted to block the donation of Nora's collection.
In his final few years, Cecily and Fiona take over his care, and he lives to see the exhibition of Nora's pieces at the Brigg before dying alone in a hospital bed at the Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center.
On the flight, Fiona meets an American journalist named Jake Austen, an alcoholic with a "boomerang wallet" that comes back to him every time he loses it.
After hesitantly agreeing to give him Serge's number, she receives a call from her private investigator, Arnaud, announcing that he has tracked down Kurt Pearce, Cecily's son and Claire's former boyfriend.
While watching Nicolette play in the park, Fiona breaks down in tears and confesses to Cecily that she turned Yale's mother away from the AIDS unit four days before he died.
"[3] NPR's Celia McGee noted, "Makkai's writing isn't the kind that calls attention to itself, allowing the people, emotions, personal incidents and public occurrences of her book to take shape with the force of urgency and the authentic, the grievousness of deceit—by lovers, by families, by hope—and the generosity of romance, sorrow, growth and wonder.
"[15] Newsday's Tim Murphy wrote that Makkai "has, in fact, done a superb job of capturing a group of friends in a particular time and place with humor and compassion.