false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255575900m/776137.jpg 776137 22 Out of the womb in 1871, Max Tivoli looked to all the world like a tiny 70-year-old man. But inside the aged body was an infant. Victim of a rare disease, Max grows physically younger as his mind matures. In Andrew Sean Greer's finely crafted novel, <I>The Confessions of Max Tivoli</I>, Max narrates his life story from the vantage point of his late fifties, though his body is that of a 12-year-old boy. He has known since a young age that he is destined to die at 70, and he wears a golden "1941" as a constant reminder of the year he will finally perish in an infant form. His mother, a Carolina belle concerned over her son's troubling appearance, curses Max with "The Rule": "Be what they think you are." Max fails to keep this Rule only a handful of times in his life, but it is the burden of living by it that wounds him and slowly alienates him from the people he loves. Over Max's narration of the preceding decades of his life, he offers outsider's snapshots of San Francisco and all of America across the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Throughout, Greer uses the literary device of reverse aging to interrogate the evolution of social conventions, the finitude of a human life, and the decay of memory. Max wants love. But his curse destines him to deception. He loses his wife, Alice, changes his name, and remains hidden from his own son to keep his true identity secret. Only his lifelong friend, Hughie, stands by Max and can see the person inside the anachronistic body. Like the best science fiction and myth, the novel uses its central conceit to reveal human prejudice and explode all assumptions of normalcy to profound effect. Love is a destructive force in <I>The Confessions of Max Tivoli</I>. But Greer recognizes that in the failure of love is also hope. He artfully captures Max's fragile world with a delicacy that never crosses into sentimentality but also avoids the monumental scale of tragedy. As Max says near the end of the novel, "It is a brave and stupid thing, a beautiful thing to waste ones life for love." A journey with Max, while brave and beautiful, is hardly a waste. <I>--Patrick O'Kelley</I> 80686 1 2 2005 The Confessions of Max Tivoli total:2258|5:474|4:777|3:677|2:246|1:84| 2258 8085 3067 438 891993 0374128715 9780374128715 72 17 3.58 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/891993.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 0 4 false Sun Mar 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 14 06:06:01 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 16 08:21:58 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1334604 1402573685 9781402573682 11 5 3.58 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182825028m/1334604.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1334604.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 2 5 false Fri Dec 05 06:34:08 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 26 06:21:30 -0800 2008
As I read (or, listened to) this book, I couldn't help but wonder how it compares to F. Scott Fitzgerald's The ...more...]]> 776137 0312423810 9780312423810 2010 385 3.58 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255575900m/776137.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776137.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 2 2 false Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Fri Sep 14 18:19:36 -0700 2007 Fri Sep 14 18:41:23 -0700 2007 more...]]> 776137 0312423810 9780312423810 2010 385 3.58 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255575900m/776137.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776137.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 3 2 false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 30 23:28:47 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 31 01:12:11 -0700 2007 more...]]> 891993 0374128715 9780374128715 72 17 3.58 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/891993.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 3 2 false Thu May 22 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 23 19:14:09 -0700 2007 Thu May 22 15:38:16 -0700 2008 more...]]> 776137 0312423810 9780312423810 2010 385 3.58 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255575900m/776137.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776137.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 2 1 false Thu Nov 20 08:03:27 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 20 08:07:52 -0800 2008 more...]]> 776137 0312423810 9780312423810 2010 385 3.58 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255575900m/776137.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776137.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 3 1 false Thu Mar 26 20:22:59 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 26 20:33:02 -0700 2009 more...]]> 776137 0312423810 9780312423810 2010 385 3.58 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255575900m/776137.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776137.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 4 1 false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 28 11:11:42 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 28 11:12:01 -0800 2009 You're confusing it with that movie, aren't you? Well, I've seen the movie (and would love to discuss the tugboat-submarine scene with anyone who knows a lot about bo...more...]]> 776137 0312423810 9780312423810 2010 385 3.58 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255575900m/776137.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776137.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 5 1 false Tue Feb 10 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 10 11:34:25 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 12 11:19:13 -0800 2009 more...]]> 776137 0312423810 9780312423810 2010 385 3.58 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255575900m/776137.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776137.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 3 1 false Sat May 24 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon May 19 20:03:02 -0700 2008 Sat May 24 20:26:59 -0700 2008
I think I've come to m...more...]]> 1375972 1402574886 9781845051426 1 1 3.58 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1375972.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 3 1 false Mon May 19 08:28:45 -0700 2008 Mon May 19 08:30:03 -0700 2008 more...]]> 776137 0312423810 9780312423810 2010 385 3.58 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255575900m/776137.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776137.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 3 1 false Fri Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Sat Sep 15 00:45:30 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 15 12:09:59 -0700 2007 more...]]> 776137 0312423810 9780312423810 2010 385 3.58 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255575900m/776137.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776137.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 4 1 false Fri Sep 26 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Sep 11 14:50:30 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 29 16:13:54 -0700 2008 more...]]> 776137 0312423810 9780312423810 2010 385 3.58 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255575900m/776137.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776137.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 3 1 false Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 29 11:33:31 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 01 10:26:43 -0700 2008
I thought the book started off really bad and got much better. By the middle of the book, I enjoyed it.

I do think you need a ...more...]]> 891993 0374128715 9780374128715 72 17 3.58 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/891993.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 3 0 false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Jun 14 20:40:21 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 14 20:56:55 -0700 2009
I came across this book and was suddenly drawn to its strange plot. The narrative ...more...]]> 891993 0374128715 9780374128715 72 17 3.58 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/891993.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 4 0 false Mon Apr 25 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Wed Apr 29 15:31:20 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 29 15:32:29 -0700 2009 more...]]> 776137 0312423810 9780312423810 2010 385 3.58 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255575900m/776137.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776137.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 1 0 false Mon Nov 30 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Dec 03 13:03:14 -0800 2009 Thu Dec 03 13:21:42 -0800 2009
I'll tell you another thing that made my ...more...]]> 891993 0374128715 9780374128715 72 17 3.58 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/891993.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 4 0 false Mon May 04 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 04 13:58:21 -0700 2009 Tue May 05 14:38:33 -0700 2009 more...]]> 776137 0312423810 9780312423810 2010 385 3.58 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255575900m/776137.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776137.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 2 1 false Thu May 17 07:28:36 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 12 20:42:36 -0700 2007 I finishe...more...]]> 776137 0312423810 9780312423810 2010 385 3.58 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255575900m/776137.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/776137.The_Confessions_of_Max_Tivoli 3 0 false Fri Feb 06 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 26 18:42:01 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 06 21:43:08 -0800 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=776137