Authors Rebecca Makkai and Christopher Castellani discussed their latest novels, both capturing pivotal historical moments in gay history. Makkai’s The Great Believers, listed by the New York Times as one of the Best 10 Books of 2018, is about friendship and redemption in 1980s Chicago, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and in contemporary Paris. Castellani’s Leading Men, a historical novel inspired by the romance between Tennessee Williams and Frank Merlo, is set in 1950s Italy and modern-day New York and Provincetown. Dwight Garner of the New York Times declared it a “blazing” success, “an alert, serious, sweeping novel. To hold it in your hands is like holding . . . a front-row opera ticket.”