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Letters from Max: A Poet, a Teacher, a Friendship
A KIRKUS BEST BOOK OF 2018
In 2012, Sarah Ruhl was a distinguished author and playwright, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Max Ritvo, a student in her playwriting class at Yale University, was an exuberant, opinionated, and highly gifted poet. He was also in remission from pediatric cancer.
Over the next four years--in which Ritvo's illness returned and his health declined, even as his productivity bloomed--the two exchanged letters that spark with urgency, humor, and the desire for connection. Reincarnation, books, the afterlife as an Amtrak quiet car, good soup: in Ruhl and Ritvo's exchanges, all ideas are fair, nourishing game, shared and debated in a spirit of generosity and love. "We'll always know one another forever, however long ever is," Ritvo writes. "And that's all I want--is to know you forever."
Studded with poems and songs, Letters from Max is a deeply moving portrait of a friendship, and a shimmering exploration of love, art, mortality, and the afterlife.
In 2012, Sarah Ruhl was a distinguished author and playwright, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Max Ritvo, a student in her playwriting class at Yale University, was an exuberant, opinionated, and highly gifted poet. He was also in remission from pediatric cancer.
Over the next four years--in which Ritvo's illness returned and his health declined, even as his productivity bloomed--the two exchanged letters that spark with urgency, humor, and the desire for connection. Reincarnation, books, the afterlife as an Amtrak quiet car, good soup: in Ruhl and Ritvo's exchanges, all ideas are fair, nourishing game, shared and debated in a spirit of generosity and love. "We'll always know one another forever, however long ever is," Ritvo writes. "And that's all I want--is to know you forever."
Studded with poems and songs, Letters from Max is a deeply moving portrait of a friendship, and a shimmering exploration of love, art, mortality, and the afterlife.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published September 18, 2018
About the author
Sarah Ruhl
45 books588 followersSarah Ruhl (born 1974) is an American playwright. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career.
Originally, she intended to be a poet. However, after she studied under Paula Vogel at Brown University (A.B., 1997; M.F.A., 2001), she was persuaded to switch to playwriting. Her first play was The Dog Play, written in 1995 for one of Vogel's classes. Her roots in poetry can be seen in the way she uses language in her plays. She also did graduate work at Pembroke College, Oxford.
In September 2006, she received a MacArthur Fellowship. The announcement of that award stated: "Sarah Ruhl, 32, playwright, New York City. Playwright creating vivid and adventurous theatrical works that poignantly juxtapose the mundane aspects of daily life with mythic themes of love and war."
Originally, she intended to be a poet. However, after she studied under Paula Vogel at Brown University (A.B., 1997; M.F.A., 2001), she was persuaded to switch to playwriting. Her first play was The Dog Play, written in 1995 for one of Vogel's classes. Her roots in poetry can be seen in the way she uses language in her plays. She also did graduate work at Pembroke College, Oxford.
In September 2006, she received a MacArthur Fellowship. The announcement of that award stated: "Sarah Ruhl, 32, playwright, New York City. Playwright creating vivid and adventurous theatrical works that poignantly juxtapose the mundane aspects of daily life with mythic themes of love and war."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 133 reviews
June 9, 2022
I loved this collection of letters exchanged between Sarah Ruhl and her student, colleague, and friend Max Ritvo before his early death from cancer.
October 12, 2018
"Study is a secular worship."
Sarah Ruhl is a theater professor; Max Ritvo was a poet who was also a student of hers when his cancer came back. They started a correspondence of startling intimacy and depth, one that near the beginning and at parts near the end, I doubted was real. Who talks like this? Who connects like this? Imagine a world where you could write to another person, and they would write back, about religion (and go deep), write poems to you and you could write them back, and both of you would have spouses who weren't jealous/concerned about the intimacy? This is a special relationship. Almost an unreal relationship. There were times I really questioned the veracity of the exchange, honestly.
Ruhl is a playwright, and is fantastic. I've actually seen one of her plays - In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) and she has an uncanny way of capturing depth in dialogue. I wondered if this could all be her. After all, Max is struggling through chemo and endless surgeries. Would he even have energy to write a one-sentence email much less an entire poem? (I have to say it took my breath away for a second when I realize he was put on the experimental drug my Dad was on for his cancer, which is made, as they discuss, of sea squirts.)
But Max Ritvo is a real person and a real poet. You can watch video of him performing while sick. I also read the posthumous volume of his poems prepared by his poetry professor, none other than Louise Glück. His first volume was award winning and much acclaimed, during his short lifetime (he died at 26.) So all I'm left to think is that this was a unique relationship of two people whose lives were improved enormously by knowing the other, that this is a meeting of minds and spirits, and I can only marvel at it. I suspect that is why Sarah and Max talked about publishing it before his death, thinking others would at last enjoy reading selected parts of the exchange. It is more through Sarah's eyes than Max's, because we only get commentary between the poems and letters from her and not from him.
I received a copy of this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. It came out 18 September 2018.
Sarah Ruhl is a theater professor; Max Ritvo was a poet who was also a student of hers when his cancer came back. They started a correspondence of startling intimacy and depth, one that near the beginning and at parts near the end, I doubted was real. Who talks like this? Who connects like this? Imagine a world where you could write to another person, and they would write back, about religion (and go deep), write poems to you and you could write them back, and both of you would have spouses who weren't jealous/concerned about the intimacy? This is a special relationship. Almost an unreal relationship. There were times I really questioned the veracity of the exchange, honestly.
Ruhl is a playwright, and is fantastic. I've actually seen one of her plays - In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) and she has an uncanny way of capturing depth in dialogue. I wondered if this could all be her. After all, Max is struggling through chemo and endless surgeries. Would he even have energy to write a one-sentence email much less an entire poem? (I have to say it took my breath away for a second when I realize he was put on the experimental drug my Dad was on for his cancer, which is made, as they discuss, of sea squirts.)
But Max Ritvo is a real person and a real poet. You can watch video of him performing while sick. I also read the posthumous volume of his poems prepared by his poetry professor, none other than Louise Glück. His first volume was award winning and much acclaimed, during his short lifetime (he died at 26.) So all I'm left to think is that this was a unique relationship of two people whose lives were improved enormously by knowing the other, that this is a meeting of minds and spirits, and I can only marvel at it. I suspect that is why Sarah and Max talked about publishing it before his death, thinking others would at last enjoy reading selected parts of the exchange. It is more through Sarah's eyes than Max's, because we only get commentary between the poems and letters from her and not from him.
I received a copy of this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. It came out 18 September 2018.
September 30, 2019
GOD. It’s been maybe a week since I finished this and still don’t know how to review it. I got it at the strand for a $1 and was still hesitant on it and thought it would be cliche somehow. Then I read it. And couldn’t put it down. It is an exchange of emails from a professor and her student who has cancer. She weaves in their texts and phone call conversations and really pulls the context of the letters or emails all together. It has inspired and stayed with me every day since reading it. And I keep wanting to reach for it to reread it instead of starting something new. Also when I reached to a certain page (I won’t spoil it) I literally slammed the book shut and started BAWLING my eyes out. I have cried from books before but nothing like this. It hit me. I cried for probably 10 minutes. Then reread the page and cried again and finished the book with tears in my eyes spilling onto the pages.
Just phenomenal. I can’t even. The words don’t measure up to how much this book means to me.
Just phenomenal. I can’t even. The words don’t measure up to how much this book means to me.
August 8, 2020
If you have read and enjoyed The Company They Kept: Writers on Unforgettable Friendships, you will LOVE Letters from Max. Your heart will ache, but then pure love and will heal her in this beautiful collection - a celebration of meaningful friendship and need for art and literature in our lives.
Selecting excerpts from the letters seems sinning and intrusive, but you can’t resist the temptation:
I’m bitter, Sarah, I’m bitter and love the world and it won’t love me back.
[…]
Health does not belong to literature.
I wish it did.
Max is a poet.
Max is a poem.
We all become poems in the end.
There is a deeper wholeness than life
and its white tunnel of projects:
It is being forgiven
when you have done nothing.
Max Ritvo, Receding
[R]esist opacity. I think at the heart of opacity is fear. - Sarah Ruhl
To imagine a heaven is to admit
there are things in this
world you think you could never bring yourself to love,
even given an unlimited number of attempts.
“Learn to love everything—the world becomes heaven.”
“That sounds hard: I have a better idea, pass the soap.”
Max Ritvo, Refuge, For Sarah
And this, as all my friends would expect, is my favorite:
Sarah, you are wise. What does it mean to be wise? To make listening as much of a project as speaking. To make kindness heroic. To never ask of magic that it do anything other than heal. To never ask of excitement anything other than the present tense.
Selecting excerpts from the letters seems sinning and intrusive, but you can’t resist the temptation:
I’m bitter, Sarah, I’m bitter and love the world and it won’t love me back.
[…]
Health does not belong to literature.
I wish it did.
Max is a poet.
Max is a poem.
We all become poems in the end.
There is a deeper wholeness than life
and its white tunnel of projects:
It is being forgiven
when you have done nothing.
Max Ritvo, Receding
[R]esist opacity. I think at the heart of opacity is fear. - Sarah Ruhl
To imagine a heaven is to admit
there are things in this
world you think you could never bring yourself to love,
even given an unlimited number of attempts.
“Learn to love everything—the world becomes heaven.”
“That sounds hard: I have a better idea, pass the soap.”
Max Ritvo, Refuge, For Sarah
And this, as all my friends would expect, is my favorite:
Sarah, you are wise. What does it mean to be wise? To make listening as much of a project as speaking. To make kindness heroic. To never ask of magic that it do anything other than heal. To never ask of excitement anything other than the present tense.
March 11, 2019
I love reading letters. I don't even care if they're written by people I've never heard of (which is the case with this book). I just saw this at the library and grabbed it. Because letters.
I really enjoyed this book. It is full of love and poetry and grief and feelings and friendship and more love. I often thing what a shame it is that art and literature seem to glorify romantic relationships above platonic friendships, as if a friendship can't be just as deep and meaningful and nourishing to a person's soul.
4/5 because this did take me a while to get through, it felt a little overly long and there were a lot of long passages discussing conceptual topics and vague spirituality and it turns out that I actually prefer letters where the writers are mainly talking about prosaic life details.
I really enjoyed this book. It is full of love and poetry and grief and feelings and friendship and more love. I often thing what a shame it is that art and literature seem to glorify romantic relationships above platonic friendships, as if a friendship can't be just as deep and meaningful and nourishing to a person's soul.
4/5 because this did take me a while to get through, it felt a little overly long and there were a lot of long passages discussing conceptual topics and vague spirituality and it turns out that I actually prefer letters where the writers are mainly talking about prosaic life details.
November 22, 2018
There’s a part towards the end that talks about how this book came about, “Max expressed worry that it would read either like a boring scholarly tome or ‘a Lifetime movie story of poor cancer boy and his wise, brilliant, loving mentor ministering to his heart and mind through every mortal peril and petty crisis.’”
That’s exactly how this book reads.
That’s exactly how this book reads.
October 28, 2018
“No end, I swear by all that is holy, only the silence in between the movements. You know those silences where the educated audience members at concerts don’t applaud? Because they know it is a ‘movement’ that’s just ended and not the end of a song? I think or hope that’s what death is. The silence between movements; those who don’t know any better applaud, but those who know music more intimately sit in silence and wait for the next movement to begin.”
May 28, 2018
Max Ritvo's letters and poetry are brilliant, but the title of this book only reveals Sarah Ruhl's humility: her generous correspondence is a master class in compassion.
October 28, 2018
"Letters from Max: a book of friendship," is a spiritual and creative insider view to poet Max Ritvo and his teacher, mentor, and friend: playwright Sarah Ruhl. I've seen two of Sarah's plays, In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play, (award winning) and Dear Elizabeth, about Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. Both brilliant. According to Max she is a near saint, and from her involement and learning from her students and her Buddhist religion, I think she does reach saint status. Certainly she is brilliant and a huge supporter of her students, which makes for the best kind of teacher. She had a strong connection with Max, and it is a delight to read their letters back and forth to each other.
So much of this book is moving, and it goes to and beyond Max's death, we hear in his own words his struggles and his creative process through it.
This quote at the beginning from Leslie Marmon Silko (from, "The Delicacy & Strength of Lace") "At Laguna, when someone dies, you don't "get over it" by forgetting; you "get over it" by remembering." (remembering is in italics.)
From inside an MRI scan he has written this short piece:
Scan
Lie flat,
comes the command,
from a voice unsinging;
the voice starts to weep
and I blow it kisses.
Another section of the poem, "Receding"
There is a deep wholeness than life
and its white tunnel of projects:
It is being forgiven
when you have done nothing.
Confucian proverb: "A few days without reading make conversation taste like food with no salt."
"...what Buddha was talking about when he said desire causes all suffering. Becasue anxiety is always a form of desire." said Max
"Death is the longest and most uncomfortable silence in existence. Audit resolves in the most underwhelming utterance—even more silence. And the dying person imposes it on every single person they've ever known. You loved ones think about dead you even when you'r not around—they think about you for decades, for their whole lives if you loved them enough. Death gives you an audience for your uncomfortable silence that has no geographic or temporal constraint. It gives you a forever stage (at least until your audience goes extinct)." Max
Lama Pema did a one-year (after death) chanting for Max, in regards to Max's short life (25) he compared life to a dream: "It is very sad to die young, to die early. On th eother hand, when you wake up from a dream, it doesn't matter how long the dream was. The important thing is that you wake up. You never remember how long the dream was."
So much of this book is moving, and it goes to and beyond Max's death, we hear in his own words his struggles and his creative process through it.
This quote at the beginning from Leslie Marmon Silko (from, "The Delicacy & Strength of Lace") "At Laguna, when someone dies, you don't "get over it" by forgetting; you "get over it" by remembering." (remembering is in italics.)
From inside an MRI scan he has written this short piece:
Scan
Lie flat,
comes the command,
from a voice unsinging;
the voice starts to weep
and I blow it kisses.
Another section of the poem, "Receding"
There is a deep wholeness than life
and its white tunnel of projects:
It is being forgiven
when you have done nothing.
Confucian proverb: "A few days without reading make conversation taste like food with no salt."
"...what Buddha was talking about when he said desire causes all suffering. Becasue anxiety is always a form of desire." said Max
"Death is the longest and most uncomfortable silence in existence. Audit resolves in the most underwhelming utterance—even more silence. And the dying person imposes it on every single person they've ever known. You loved ones think about dead you even when you'r not around—they think about you for decades, for their whole lives if you loved them enough. Death gives you an audience for your uncomfortable silence that has no geographic or temporal constraint. It gives you a forever stage (at least until your audience goes extinct)." Max
Lama Pema did a one-year (after death) chanting for Max, in regards to Max's short life (25) he compared life to a dream: "It is very sad to die young, to die early. On th eother hand, when you wake up from a dream, it doesn't matter how long the dream was. The important thing is that you wake up. You never remember how long the dream was."
January 29, 2022
DNF'd about 1/3 of the way through, for several reasons.
1. Neither of these people can rhyme. All their poems (so far, at least, with one partial exception) are in free verse, and free verse has never been my cup of tea. I prefer the disciplined cadence of poetry that is actually rhyming. A little free verse once in a while I can handle, but this is just way too much of that for me. Some people love free verse. To each his own. I personally can't stand it in any quantity so I started skimming and skipping that long before I DNF'd.
2. This book is incredibly pretentious. What they actually said to one another in emails or texts doesn't bother me, but when the author recreates their in-person conversations, she makes sure to pepper the he-said-something-like-this-and-then-I-said-something-like-that with indecipherable references to philosophy and obscure poets that nobody but they and people in their circle have ever heard of. She apparently attempted to awe the reader with their deep, intellectual recreated conversations with zero regard for whether or not those conversations would make any sense to the reader. It's particularly irritating because it's so unnecessary and antithetical to what a book is meant to be. That is, if a book is unintelligible to the reader, what in the world is the point of it? Why not either leave those parts out since she's just recalling what might have been said anyway, or at least edit them so there would be an occasional reference over the average reader's head instead of entire conversations? The point of this seems to be to brag about how smart this lady and her friend are, and that kind of bragging is never attractive.
3. I was already struggling with the constant irritations of the above mentioned issues when I got to the part about them becoming more intentional about what they wrote because they wanted to publish their letters. Seriously? Who does that? One of my favorite types of book to read is letters, but to the best of my knowledge I have never read a book of letters where the authors INTENTIONALLY WROTE LETTERS TO ONE ANOTHER SO THEY COULD PUBLISH THEM.
Seriously. That was the final straw for me. DNF it is, without even the usual pang of regret I get for quitting a book part way through.
This a book with a great premise and great promise that is almost entirely obstructed by the author's ego.
1. Neither of these people can rhyme. All their poems (so far, at least, with one partial exception) are in free verse, and free verse has never been my cup of tea. I prefer the disciplined cadence of poetry that is actually rhyming. A little free verse once in a while I can handle, but this is just way too much of that for me. Some people love free verse. To each his own. I personally can't stand it in any quantity so I started skimming and skipping that long before I DNF'd.
2. This book is incredibly pretentious. What they actually said to one another in emails or texts doesn't bother me, but when the author recreates their in-person conversations, she makes sure to pepper the he-said-something-like-this-and-then-I-said-something-like-that with indecipherable references to philosophy and obscure poets that nobody but they and people in their circle have ever heard of. She apparently attempted to awe the reader with their deep, intellectual recreated conversations with zero regard for whether or not those conversations would make any sense to the reader. It's particularly irritating because it's so unnecessary and antithetical to what a book is meant to be. That is, if a book is unintelligible to the reader, what in the world is the point of it? Why not either leave those parts out since she's just recalling what might have been said anyway, or at least edit them so there would be an occasional reference over the average reader's head instead of entire conversations? The point of this seems to be to brag about how smart this lady and her friend are, and that kind of bragging is never attractive.
3. I was already struggling with the constant irritations of the above mentioned issues when I got to the part about them becoming more intentional about what they wrote because they wanted to publish their letters. Seriously? Who does that? One of my favorite types of book to read is letters, but to the best of my knowledge I have never read a book of letters where the authors INTENTIONALLY WROTE LETTERS TO ONE ANOTHER SO THEY COULD PUBLISH THEM.
Seriously. That was the final straw for me. DNF it is, without even the usual pang of regret I get for quitting a book part way through.
This a book with a great premise and great promise that is almost entirely obstructed by the author's ego.
December 5, 2018
Ruhl is a playwright, but she originally wanted to be a poet. ("I began to think there was a kind of equation for playwrights—indifferent-to-bad poets made good playwrights," she writes.) Ritvo tried his hand at writing plays in Ruhl's class but quickly returned to poetry. They kept in touch, writing emails between visits and poetry readings. Ruhl adds context when letters miss some of the story - when Ritvo's cancer returns, the treatments he goes through, and the joys they share when they are able to meet in person.
Going into this book I was expecting the letters, expecting the cancer, expecting the thoughts about life and finding meaning.
I was not expecting the poetry.
They send poems back and forth, first ditties written long ago or in stolen moments, but they evolve and add another layer to the correspondence. Images posited in letters, something as simple as the comfort of soup, are transformed when put into verse. It's like I've been given the key to their shorthand, and a key to their linguistic hearts.
I connected with some of the poems more than others. I especially liked Ruhl's - the images, the language, and the friendship-ly love hit me in the gut. Ritvo's poetry doesn't have the same punch but his letters make me think all the same.
My eyes sometimes glossed over with the religious talk, but it's neat seeing things from the perspective of a Catholic turned Buddhist and a Jewish boy turned atheist. Your mileage will likely vary.
A touching, beautiful look at the end of a life through the eyes of two poets. Bring some tissues.
Going into this book I was expecting the letters, expecting the cancer, expecting the thoughts about life and finding meaning.
I was not expecting the poetry.
Some loop closed by old age,
the droop of an old man's head
conferring a measure of acceptance,
head already looking at the ground, thinking:
when will a hole open up
and I'll fall into it?
(Ruhl)
They send poems back and forth, first ditties written long ago or in stolen moments, but they evolve and add another layer to the correspondence. Images posited in letters, something as simple as the comfort of soup, are transformed when put into verse. It's like I've been given the key to their shorthand, and a key to their linguistic hearts.
I connected with some of the poems more than others. I especially liked Ruhl's - the images, the language, and the friendship-ly love hit me in the gut. Ritvo's poetry doesn't have the same punch but his letters make me think all the same.
When I see you I am happy
even when you're sad.
Meet me at the carousel
in this life or the next.
Meet me at the carousel
I'll be wearing red.
(Ruhl)
My eyes sometimes glossed over with the religious talk, but it's neat seeing things from the perspective of a Catholic turned Buddhist and a Jewish boy turned atheist. Your mileage will likely vary.
A touching, beautiful look at the end of a life through the eyes of two poets. Bring some tissues.
July 9, 2018
I picked up an ARC of this short book at BEA drawn to the simple serenity of the cover. This is a collection of letters between playwright and Yale professor Sarah Ruhl and Max Ritvo, a Yale student in remission from a childhood cancer. When they first meet, Max is a student in Sarah's playwriting class, filled with exuberance and incredible wit and talent. But just a few months later, Max's cancer returns and his studies are interspersed with chemo and experimental immunotherapy treatments. My husband is also in remission from cancer and it's a tough balancing act trying to live big and get the most out of life, with a constant shadow of CT scans and that huge unknown of what will happen next. The letters between Max and Sarah capture that life from a little of Max's view, but mostly from Sarah, a friend who is watching a friend lose his battle to cancer. But the beauty behind this book isn't the sadness or expression of loss, but the beautiful friendship that develops between Sarah and Max. Poignant and beautiful.
April 27, 2020
Letters from Max is the most singularly human work I have ever read. This almost voyeuristic window into the unique and intimate relationship Sarah and Max share was the type of storyline that you knew would make you hurt in a good way before you even started -- and it didn't disappoint. You don't love Max or Sarah in spite of their imperfections and humanities; you love them because of it. The random profound thoughts, hits, misses and all, the triumphs and the heartbreaks, everything comes together to reinforce this grand idea that humans are so infinitely complex and impossible to understand neatly -- and that's precisely why art exists.
July 15, 2022
A book like no other.
I haven't read many memoirs in my life, but I strongly believe that my future reads will have to work incredibly hard in order to top Letters from Max. This book made me cry far too many times because of how beautifully it was written— in both the traditional text and the poems. There were many heartfelt, and heart wrenching, moments that made reading the book so captivating, I couldn't put it down.
One of my favourite lines is, "Yesterday in a panic I simply spent time alone with my books."
I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did.
I haven't read many memoirs in my life, but I strongly believe that my future reads will have to work incredibly hard in order to top Letters from Max. This book made me cry far too many times because of how beautifully it was written— in both the traditional text and the poems. There were many heartfelt, and heart wrenching, moments that made reading the book so captivating, I couldn't put it down.
One of my favourite lines is, "Yesterday in a panic I simply spent time alone with my books."
I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did.
December 5, 2023
I've always been drawn to the confessional, especially in the intimacy of correspondence between friends: Bishop and Lowell, Frost and Pound (although Pound leaves me with mixed feelings), and now, contemporarily, Sarah Ruhl and Max Ritvo, in Letters from Max. Confessional poetry makes my knees weak, mainly the mother of confessional, Plath, but I simply adore the relationship that blooms through prose and letters. This type of writing often feels voyeuristic and exciting, but I immerged (after two days of feverish reading) from Letters from Max with a different feeling, well, perhaps two, but one was peacefully, and the other was the desire to start the book again from the beginning.
I hesitate to say these letters are tasty, as that would mistake the text as indulgent and hedonistic, so perhaps I will call this book wholesome, but I devoured the pages nonetheless. The relationship starts as a means of Max staying in touch with his teacher, Sarah, while he undergoes treatment for cancer, but their relationship expands into musings of the world, love, relationships, and most importantly, what even is death? Both individuals are in such opposite stages of their lives, yet, they pour their hearts out, often in lengthy letters. I found myself wanting to dog-ear every page, as I was hit by a tidal wave, or spark of inspiration, that made me very grateful for Sarah and Max, and being privy to their conversations.
In the present day, I find the craft and intimacy of letter writing something of a dying breed. And I long for the intimacy of sharing my world with another person (through correspondence), in a way similar to Letters from Max. I originally heard about Max from reading Between Two Kingdoms (which I'd also highly recommend) and was infatuated with the way Suleika Jaoud described her poet friend; and I'm glad I stumbled across his work. In a way, Letters from Max serves as an index and a cipher for the rest of his breathtaking work. After finishing this book, I cracked open his debut collection, and his already vibrant prose and imagery leapt from the page, like an old friend.
Max is so desperate to make meaning of his world; Sarah is so desperate to preserve her friend; I'm so desperate to understand how I can swim into these pages, and immerge onto the bank to become a better poet and writer, myself. I would highly recommend this book.
I hesitate to say these letters are tasty, as that would mistake the text as indulgent and hedonistic, so perhaps I will call this book wholesome, but I devoured the pages nonetheless. The relationship starts as a means of Max staying in touch with his teacher, Sarah, while he undergoes treatment for cancer, but their relationship expands into musings of the world, love, relationships, and most importantly, what even is death? Both individuals are in such opposite stages of their lives, yet, they pour their hearts out, often in lengthy letters. I found myself wanting to dog-ear every page, as I was hit by a tidal wave, or spark of inspiration, that made me very grateful for Sarah and Max, and being privy to their conversations.
In the present day, I find the craft and intimacy of letter writing something of a dying breed. And I long for the intimacy of sharing my world with another person (through correspondence), in a way similar to Letters from Max. I originally heard about Max from reading Between Two Kingdoms (which I'd also highly recommend) and was infatuated with the way Suleika Jaoud described her poet friend; and I'm glad I stumbled across his work. In a way, Letters from Max serves as an index and a cipher for the rest of his breathtaking work. After finishing this book, I cracked open his debut collection, and his already vibrant prose and imagery leapt from the page, like an old friend.
Max is so desperate to make meaning of his world; Sarah is so desperate to preserve her friend; I'm so desperate to understand how I can swim into these pages, and immerge onto the bank to become a better poet and writer, myself. I would highly recommend this book.
April 29, 2020
Letters to Max is a moving remembrance of how to love. The book is a compilation of letters/texts/conversations between Sarah Ruhl and Max Ritvo and details their evolving friendship that includes all of the roles teacher-mentor, writer-editor, friend, confidant, badass cheerleader. It's a powerful display of how relationships develop, how disparate communications can still form a connected thread in our lives, and how relationships are never one sided, there is always something there for every party to grow, and to evolve, and to pursue. This book is about love. This book is about connection. This book is about exploring the world and ourselves and others and all the relationships between.
December 9, 2021
This is a book that will stick with me for a long after I have finished it. The relationship that Sarah and Max had forged was beautiful in it's depth and honesty. They truly supported one another, in their literature, their careers, their life...the poetry they shared with one another was inspiring. I am so happy they were able to compile their letters and pieces of work they shared and brought us in on their conversations.
March 4, 2019
Oh, my tiny heart!
July 7, 2022
Read this. And weep.
August 13, 2023
It is no surprise that someone as talented and as skilled at capturing the human experience as Sarah Ruhl kept the company of another brilliant mind. A gorgeous testament to the power of friendship
March 26, 2024
maybe life is about teaching and being taught
August 25, 2024
Definitely a new favorite of mine. By far some of the most eloquent writing I’ve ever read, and such a bittersweet story. I want to read this again when I have read more poetry because some of the messages flew right past me, but this was so beautifully constructed.
November 28, 2025
Gorgeous, intimate, moving.
May 24, 2024
“Maybe death is an Amtrak quiet car.” Friendship, and love, and loss, and language. So many good things here!!
Read
December 18, 2022Thank you Suze for the rec. This book was very sweet. I've never witnessed a friendship like the one between Max and Sarah. So much mutual respect, awe, and love. I want to read poetry!
October 6, 2018
I joined a choir this fall that was asked to sing at a funeral for a woman I didn’t know. The nephew of the deceased, a man of probably 70 years, said a few words about what his Aunt Peggy meant to him. Letters, he said. She wrote letters to him that always “invited a thoughtful response.” How is it that the notion of writing to an audience of one invokes such longing in us? Letter writing is the anti-Twitter we crave. To write and give the gift of time to just one recipient seems idilic now—so gloriously inefficient and therefore intimate. The premise of Letters from Max, the very idea of a cultivated correspondence has all the throw-back appeal of homemade cherry pie—with a little bourbon thrown in for Max’s dark humor.
There is something extra special though about the correspondence of poets. Braided Creek, by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser comes to mind. Disguised in the mail poems hide out undetected to both the messenger and reader until, there it is, a secret art enclosure—embedded word gifts for the reader alone.
Ruhl shows exquisite mastery of language in communicating to Max in his great pain. She strikes an ideal balance of articulate compassion, encouragement, humor and strength. Should this be attributed to her role as mother or her wholesome midwestern roots? Or was to know Max Ritvo to instinctively and joyously override the human tendency to shrink away and disengage from a young dying person? Maybe in Max there was such vitality, such creative energy emanating from his expiring body that she did the only thing that felt right, which was to know him.
Ruhl’s motherhood plays a significant role in this work. A mother’s frustrations make good stories. Sharing them with Max is cathartic for her and an amusing, indulgent distraction for him, a man fully aware that his life will stop short of parenting. In part one she writes “I don’t know if my friendship with Max felt like an extension of my mothering, or a release from it, or both.” This is a deceptively simple statement. As a mother I find this very accurate. The way motherhood touches the “non-mothering” aspects of our lives is real but also visceral and mysteriously muddled.
As a fellow Chicago native I appreciate her midwestern optimism and modesty which prevents her from thinking of herself as a real poet (!) and her catholic upbringing that she wants to separate from for more Buddhist ways but can’t completely do so. Compositionally this plays very well against Max’s cynical atheist Jewish roots.
While the later letters are moving and intense, deep and lyrical, as Max’s health declines the early messages (prior to their agreement to make a book) shine brightest. Uninhibited and less self-aware they let the reader in on a whimsical beginning of a friendship of beautiful minds. It’s like watching brilliant children meet on a playground, their thoughts swinging in tandem, teeter-tottering up and down, to and from, conversing back and forth in a cadence that celebrates, elevates, mourns and ultimately finds joy in the complexities of human existence.
There is something extra special though about the correspondence of poets. Braided Creek, by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser comes to mind. Disguised in the mail poems hide out undetected to both the messenger and reader until, there it is, a secret art enclosure—embedded word gifts for the reader alone.
Ruhl shows exquisite mastery of language in communicating to Max in his great pain. She strikes an ideal balance of articulate compassion, encouragement, humor and strength. Should this be attributed to her role as mother or her wholesome midwestern roots? Or was to know Max Ritvo to instinctively and joyously override the human tendency to shrink away and disengage from a young dying person? Maybe in Max there was such vitality, such creative energy emanating from his expiring body that she did the only thing that felt right, which was to know him.
Ruhl’s motherhood plays a significant role in this work. A mother’s frustrations make good stories. Sharing them with Max is cathartic for her and an amusing, indulgent distraction for him, a man fully aware that his life will stop short of parenting. In part one she writes “I don’t know if my friendship with Max felt like an extension of my mothering, or a release from it, or both.” This is a deceptively simple statement. As a mother I find this very accurate. The way motherhood touches the “non-mothering” aspects of our lives is real but also visceral and mysteriously muddled.
As a fellow Chicago native I appreciate her midwestern optimism and modesty which prevents her from thinking of herself as a real poet (!) and her catholic upbringing that she wants to separate from for more Buddhist ways but can’t completely do so. Compositionally this plays very well against Max’s cynical atheist Jewish roots.
While the later letters are moving and intense, deep and lyrical, as Max’s health declines the early messages (prior to their agreement to make a book) shine brightest. Uninhibited and less self-aware they let the reader in on a whimsical beginning of a friendship of beautiful minds. It’s like watching brilliant children meet on a playground, their thoughts swinging in tandem, teeter-tottering up and down, to and from, conversing back and forth in a cadence that celebrates, elevates, mourns and ultimately finds joy in the complexities of human existence.
December 2, 2019
5/5
this book was incredible. it took me FOREVER to read, partially because i added it to my currently reading when i wasn't really all that into reading it, but also because i dunno, despite how beautiful it was sometimes reading a lot of it at a time would almost...overwhelm me? not sure. and then i would put it down and forget about it for a while. but this book is stunningly beautiful. both max and sarah use language beautifully & as a result i have so many post-it flags sticking out of this book. i'm just gonna list some of the dates of my favorite correspondences in the favs sections, i think.
it was really cool to see some earlier drafts of max's poetry, to see the process and to kind of glimpse...him. based on his poetry he seemed like a stunning person but i can see it even more profoundly in this.
fav dates & stuff
- march 15, "listening, speaking, and breathing"
- march 27
- july 22
- july 30
- august 8, "for max"
- september 12, "lunch with max on the upper east side"
- august 31
- october 7, "some old-fashioned rhymes for max"
- january 14, "winter poetry"
- may 2
- may 15
- january 16 2016, (max's poem for robot surgery)
- february 16
- march 8
- march 31, "the other birthday"
this poem that wasn't written by either of them, but rather by a second grader is like !!!!
"Try to sing
while you think.
A poem is
not so hard
if you sing
and think."
—Patrick, PS 17, Queens
"The hotel is overwhelmingly beautiful. The beauty is quite eclipsing my ability to enjoy it. I feel a need to live up to it—to be peaceful and reflective. My yearning for peacefulness always has a secret agenda—what I really want, of course, is to cogitate sublimely and decorously in the aftershock of peace."
—August 4
"Thank you for dreaming about me. I'm happy I made you cry. It means you love me and my situation is suitably dramatic. But I'm sad I made you cry because I love you and don't want you to cry."
—January 16
"I'm humbled that you have provided illimitable love to me. I hope that you realize that my love for you is also illimitable. Whatever happens in the crazy twistings and turnings of my current situation, I know I can fall back on the love between us as one of the rocks in my life. Continue to grow and mature into womanhood. You have much to contribute to the world—I am only grateful that I've been one of the beneficiaries."
"Death is the longest and most uncomfortable silence in existence. And it resolves in the most underwhelming utterance—even more silence. And the dying person imposes it on every single person they've ever known. Your loved ones think about dead you even when you're not around—they think about you for decades, for their whole lives if you loved them enough. Death gives you an audience for your uncomfortable silence that has no geographic or temporal constraint. It gives you a forever stage (at least until your audience goes extinct.)"
at the end, she tries to write max directly and it's so fucking beautiful.
this book was incredible. it took me FOREVER to read, partially because i added it to my currently reading when i wasn't really all that into reading it, but also because i dunno, despite how beautiful it was sometimes reading a lot of it at a time would almost...overwhelm me? not sure. and then i would put it down and forget about it for a while. but this book is stunningly beautiful. both max and sarah use language beautifully & as a result i have so many post-it flags sticking out of this book. i'm just gonna list some of the dates of my favorite correspondences in the favs sections, i think.
it was really cool to see some earlier drafts of max's poetry, to see the process and to kind of glimpse...him. based on his poetry he seemed like a stunning person but i can see it even more profoundly in this.
fav dates & stuff
- march 15, "listening, speaking, and breathing"
- march 27
- july 22
- july 30
- august 8, "for max"
- september 12, "lunch with max on the upper east side"
- august 31
- october 7, "some old-fashioned rhymes for max"
- january 14, "winter poetry"
- may 2
- may 15
- january 16 2016, (max's poem for robot surgery)
- february 16
- march 8
- march 31, "the other birthday"
this poem that wasn't written by either of them, but rather by a second grader is like !!!!
"Try to sing
while you think.
A poem is
not so hard
if you sing
and think."
—Patrick, PS 17, Queens
"The hotel is overwhelmingly beautiful. The beauty is quite eclipsing my ability to enjoy it. I feel a need to live up to it—to be peaceful and reflective. My yearning for peacefulness always has a secret agenda—what I really want, of course, is to cogitate sublimely and decorously in the aftershock of peace."
—August 4
"Thank you for dreaming about me. I'm happy I made you cry. It means you love me and my situation is suitably dramatic. But I'm sad I made you cry because I love you and don't want you to cry."
—January 16
"I'm humbled that you have provided illimitable love to me. I hope that you realize that my love for you is also illimitable. Whatever happens in the crazy twistings and turnings of my current situation, I know I can fall back on the love between us as one of the rocks in my life. Continue to grow and mature into womanhood. You have much to contribute to the world—I am only grateful that I've been one of the beneficiaries."
"Death is the longest and most uncomfortable silence in existence. And it resolves in the most underwhelming utterance—even more silence. And the dying person imposes it on every single person they've ever known. Your loved ones think about dead you even when you're not around—they think about you for decades, for their whole lives if you loved them enough. Death gives you an audience for your uncomfortable silence that has no geographic or temporal constraint. It gives you a forever stage (at least until your audience goes extinct.)"
at the end, she tries to write max directly and it's so fucking beautiful.
January 5, 2024
I've read some of Sarah Ruhl's other books and was curious about this one since I have read some of Max Ritvo's poetry. This book was deeply moving -- the ways in which their friendship evolved after being a teacher/student and the depth of their conversations as Max navigated so many health challenges at such a young age. His poetic eye is gone way too soon but I'm glad that this book helps tell some of the story of his life.
And this book was kind of one of those heady conversations about death, life, love, and the comfort of soup and all those ordinary things that make up a friendship that it was thoughtful and heartbreaking at the same time. It also made me realize that Ruhl was writing this at the height of her small children era -- while also working as a professor at Yale and writing and seeing her work performed -- and I am reading this while in the hight of my small children era so it was comforting to see she struggles too but also disconcerting how much she seemed to still be able to move forward in her career despite all that was going on .
In short, I loved this book and thought a lot about this book and yet -- as someone who has lost someone they loved recently -- this book also ripped my heart open anew. I'll be reading this again when I'm ready.
And this book was kind of one of those heady conversations about death, life, love, and the comfort of soup and all those ordinary things that make up a friendship that it was thoughtful and heartbreaking at the same time. It also made me realize that Ruhl was writing this at the height of her small children era -- while also working as a professor at Yale and writing and seeing her work performed -- and I am reading this while in the hight of my small children era so it was comforting to see she struggles too but also disconcerting how much she seemed to still be able to move forward in her career despite all that was going on .
In short, I loved this book and thought a lot about this book and yet -- as someone who has lost someone they loved recently -- this book also ripped my heart open anew. I'll be reading this again when I'm ready.
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