Yale Tishman is a young professional gay man in 1980's Chicago just as the AIDS epidemic starts its ravaging path. The book opens at a memorial party for Yale's good friend, Nico, the first of his group to die. Nico's story is a familiar tale of parental betrayal because of his sexuality but the central figure of his story is his sister, Fiona. She was his caregiver, his protector and his stanchest ally through his life.

The book flips back and forth between Yale's story in the late 80's and early 90's and Fiona's story in 2015. It is a story of the devastation of the AIDS epidemic, the governments lack of response, society's paranoia but mostly it is the story of the toll on Fiona's life as she watches her friends die one by one and is left with task of carrying on their memories. There is so much more to the story than what I am describing here but one of the delights in reading it was the gentle unfolding of the stories of Yale and Fiona. It is the winner of the Carnegie Medal for fiction and a Pulitzer finalist. It is a beautifully told story of a generation of the gay population whose lives were cut short and the empty spaces they left in the world around them.