A rarity in contemporary literary fiction - a plot-driven novel

Rebecca Makkai's 2018 novel, The Great Believers, moves along smoothly - I'm about halfway through the novel - because it's one of those rare things among literary fiction today, a plot-driven novel. In fact there are two plots, running in alternating chapters: one set in 1985/6 among a very lively gay male community in Chicago and which involves a 30-something man, Yale, involved in trying to secure a major art donation to the museum where he works; the donation entails many complications, including difficulty in verifying the authenticity, family opposition to the donation, and threats from another major donor, as well as homophobia; the second plot, set 30 years later, concerns the sister of one of the first men to die in the 1985 AIDS outbreak who is now in her early 50s and in Paris in search of her adult daughter who has gone off the grid and aligned with a cult or sect. Either of these plots could stand up well alone, but Makkai is smart to see that the two actually bolster each other, providing a perspective in time - one gives the historical background, the other gives us the near-present-day outcome - though at least up to this point the only true overlap of the plots is the appearance in both of the same character - Fiona, a teenager w/ only a small role in the earlier story and the protagonist in the later. The novel is not entirely flawless; at times it seems to just hug along and it's really hard for us, for me anyway, to retain the names and salient traits of so many characters. Makkai rarely sets a scene and never pauses for authorial comment, which keeps the novel moving but also makes it feel at times flat and sketched in - especially because of her frequent us of lists and sentence fragments. That said, there are many strengths - particularly its unflinching look at the physical and emotional trauma of the early days of the AIDS outbreak (without being unduly mawkish) - enough, anyway, to keep my attention and interest for 200 or so pages and proceeding.