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CONFESSIONS OF MAX TIVOLI

By Andrew Sean Greer

(15)

| Paperback | 9780571226450

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Book Description

Today Show Book Club PickAn extraordinarily haunting love story told in the voice of a man who appears to age backwardsWe are each the love of someone's life.So begins The Confessions of Max Tivoli, a heartbreaking love story with a narrator like no other. At his birth, Max's father declares him a "Continue

Today Show Book Club PickAn extraordinarily haunting love story told in the voice of a man who appears to age backwardsWe are each the love of someone's life.So begins The Confessions of Max Tivoli, a heartbreaking love story with a narrator like no other. At his birth, Max's father declares him a "nisse," a creature of Danish myth, as his baby son has the external physical appearance of an old, dying creature. Max grows older like any child, but his physical age appears to go backward--on the outside a very old man, but inside still a fearful child.The story is told in three acts. First, young Max falls in love with a neighborhood girl, Alice, who ages as normally as any of us. 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 historical backdrop of San Francisco at the turn of the twentieth century, Max's life and confessions question the very nature of time, of appearance and reality, and of love itself. A beautiful and daring feat of the imagination, The Confessions of Max Tivoli reveals the world through the eyes of a "monster," a being who confounds the very certainties by which we live and in doing so embodies in extremis what it means to be human.

Critics

  • Time travel

    The Confessions of Max Tivoli Andrew Sean Greer 267pp, Faber, £10.99 "Time," says Max Tivoli, the narrator of this remarkable novel, "was never on my side." For Max is a freak of nature, born old and living out his sad, passionate life in reverse, an ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

  • The Confessions of Max Tivoli By Andrew Sean Greer

    Max Tivoli, the character at the center of Andrew Sean Greer's remarkable new novel, starts life with a bang. Max is conceived in Golden Gate Park in 1870 at the moment when Blossom Rock is dynamited in San Francisco Bay, creating the largest explosi ... (read full critics)

    bookpage published on Thu, 16 Sep 2010

2 Reviews

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  • Enchanting

    This book is mesmerizing and heartbreaking. Max Tivoli tells us his unique perspective of life: the more time passes the more he gets younger. Max is definitely greedy and selfish even if the story is all about his love for Alice.
    A little "Time traveller's wife" a little "The curious case of Benjam ... (continue)

    This book is mesmerizing and heartbreaking. Max Tivoli tells us his unique perspective of life: the more time passes the more he gets younger. Max is definitely greedy and selfish even if the story is all about his love for Alice.
    A little "Time traveller's wife" a little "The curious case of Benjamin Button" it's anyway worth-reading.

    Is this helpful?

    Mariella B said on Mar 12, 2012 | Add your feedback

  • If you've ever wished you could age backwards - be born old and wrinkly and die young and wrinkly - this book might dissuade you. Poor Max. Born in the late 19th century looking for all purposes like a geriatric. Teenage years must be particularly awkward. Falling in love, as you might expect, sucks ... (continue)

    If you've ever wished you could age backwards - be born old and wrinkly and die young and wrinkly - this book might dissuade you. Poor Max. Born in the late 19th century looking for all purposes like a geriatric. Teenage years must be particularly awkward. Falling in love, as you might expect, sucks, especially when it's with a vain, self-absorbed bubblehead like Alice. Gloomy and with the foreboding cloud of mortality and an ignominous end hanging over his head, it's no wonder Max gets all emotional, introspective and poetic with rage and frustration. Hell, My Chemical Romance could take a lesson or two from this guy.

    Is this helpful?

    Danelectrico said on Dec 6, 2007 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

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9780571226450 Paperback $11.25 -- The Book Depository
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