So begins The Confessions of Max Tivoli, a heartbreaking love story with a narrator like no other. At his birth, Max has the external physical appearance of an old, dying creature. Max grows older like any child, but his physical age appears to go backwards - on the outside a very old man, but inside still a fearful child. When Max is seventeen, he falls in love with a neighbour girl, Alice, who ages normally. Max, of course, does not; as a young man, he has an older man's body. But his curse is also his blessing: as he ...
Read More
So begins The Confessions of Max Tivoli, a heartbreaking love story with a narrator like no other. At his birth, Max has the external physical appearance of an old, dying creature. Max grows older like any child, but his physical age appears to go backwards - on the outside a very old man, but inside still a fearful child. When Max is seventeen, he falls in love with a neighbour girl, Alice, who ages normally. Max, of course, does not; as a young man, he has an older man's body. But his curse is also his blessing: as he gets older, his body grows younger, so each successive time he finds his Alice, she does not recognize him, she takes him for a stranger, and Max is given another chance at love. Set against the backdrop of San Francisco at the turn of the twentieth century, Max's confessions are written in a prose that is beautifully modulated; its tale of love lost then found achieves an emotional resonance that is unforgettable.
Read Less
Add this copy of The Confessions of Max Tivoli: a Novel to cart. $0.99, very good condition, Sold by More Than Words rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Waltham, MA, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by Picador USA.
Add this copy of The Confessions of Max Tivoli: a Novel to cart. $0.99, good condition, Sold by More Than Words rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Waltham, MA, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by Picador USA.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. All orders guaranteed and ship within 24 hours. Your purchase supports More Than Words, a nonprofit job training program for youth, empowering youth to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business.
Add this copy of The Confessions of Max Tivoli (Today Show Book Club #22 to cart. $0.99, good condition, Sold by More Than Words rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Waltham, MA, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by Farrar Straus Giroux.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. Very good. All orders guaranteed and ship within 24 hours. Your purchase supports More Than Words, a nonprofit job training program for youth, empowering youth to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business.
Add this copy of Confessions of Max Tivoli to cart. $1.14, good condition, Sold by Gulf Coast Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Memphis, TN, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by Picador Paper.
Add this copy of Confessions of Max Tivoli to cart. $1.14, fair condition, Sold by Gulf Coast Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Memphis, TN, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by Picador Paper.
Add this copy of Confessions of Max Tivoli to cart. $1.17, good condition, Sold by Your Online Bookstore rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Houston, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by Picador Paper.
Add this copy of The Confessions of Max Tivoli: a Novel to cart. $1.17, good condition, Sold by Orion Tech rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Arlington, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by Picador.
Add this copy of The Confessions of Max Tivoli: a Novel to cart. $1.20, very good condition, Sold by Jenson Books Inc rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Logan, UT, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by Picador USA.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. A well-cared-for item that has seen limited use but remains in great condition. The item is complete, unmarked, and undamaged, but may show some limited signs of wear. Item works perfectly. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine is undamaged.
Add this copy of The Confessions of Max Tivoli (Today Show Book Club #22 to cart. $1.22, good condition, Sold by Your Online Bookstore rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Houston, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Add this copy of The Confessions of Max Tivoli (Today Show Book Club #22 to cart. $1.22, fair condition, Sold by Orion Tech rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Arlington, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2004 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
It's not often we get a second chance at something important, but protagonist Max Tivoli, born in the latter half of the 19th century, gets three tries at Alice, the love of his life, first as a stand-in for her deceased father, then as her husband, and finally as her adopted son. This is because Max has an exceedingly rare condition: his body ages backwards. Max's obsession with Alice and his desire to keep his secret obliterate everything else in his life. Family, friends, other lovers, the idea that he might do something with the time allotted to him than pursue this one woman, and many of his other needs, all must suffer to make room for the one insatiable need to be with Alice.
Greer does veer into melodrama and purplish prose in his account of how wisdom is not necessarily granted to anyone by default, no matter what their experience of the world, but this is a first-person account and so we are experiencing Max's sentimentality, Max's oddly apolitical soul, and Max's simplistic and sometimes blind approach to life. Some of Greer's writing is absolutely beautiful and moving, literature in the best sense, and a little will make you cringe, but that may be the intended effect.