The importance and value of plot

To her credit, Rebecca Makkai holds our interest and attention all the way through The Great Believers - at least to 75%, where I am now - because of her strong characterization in part but mainly through her plot-driven narrative style: I really want to know what happens to the central character, Yale. At this point in the novel Yale's life is whipsawed; on the one hand, he has learned that he is negative on the test for AIDS, great news (and increases the likelihood that he survives the 30 years to the counterbalanced narrative. On the other hand, he has lost his job at the art gallery/museum, as he takes on full responsibility for defying the will of a powerful university trustee in landing a multimillion-$ art donatinon - this lets his counterpart and friend, Cecily, off the hook. OK, so we know that Cecily gets over this, as she and her son play a secondary but significant role in the 2015 narrative thread of the story. But what happens to Yale by 2015? In part, I have to feel that Makkai is being very manipulative here; as the central figure in the 2015 narrative, Fiona, reflects at various times about many of her late brother's friends whom she knew back in the day (1985/6), she never once thinks of or mentions Yale and his fate. On a literal level, that's not likely - he would be at or near the top of her remembrances. But it's a device to keep us wondering and guessing, and I'm caught up in that. I have no idea as to what's become of Yale - I do suspect that he's still alive, as it would seem really hokey at this point to have him die by suicide or by accidental death - but I have no idea of his fate or why he's a blank in the mind of Fiona, once a comrade and friend (and sister of one of his best friends). Readers like plot, as one of my writing-group members one succinctly put it (responding to a group member who said that in he writing she had no interest in plot); this reader will keep going with The Great Believers because of the plot.