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    The Confessions of Max Tivoli: A Novel
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    The Confessions of Max Tivoli: A Novel
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    The Confessions of Max Tivoli: A Novel
    Ebook306 pages5 hours

    The Confessions of Max Tivoli: A Novel

    By Andrew Sean Greer

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    From the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less comes Andrew Sean Greer's extraordinarily haunting love story The Confessions of Max Tivoli, told in the voice of a man who appears to age backwards.

    A Today Show Book Club Pick

    We 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, Andrew Sean Greer's 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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateApr 1, 2007
    ISBN9780374706302
    Unavailable
    The Confessions of Max Tivoli: A Novel
    Author

    Andrew Sean Greer

    Andrew Sean Greer is the bestselling author of The Story of a Marriage and The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which was a Today book club selection and received a California Book Award. He lives in San Francisco.

    Read more from Andrew Sean Greer

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    Reviews for The Confessions of Max Tivoli

    3.5/5

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    • 3/5
      Based on the same premise as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, this is the tale of Max Tivoli who is born an old man and endures a life in reverse, his body growing ever younger whilst his mind ages as normal. Except for a few fleeting years in the middle of his life, Tivoli's mind and body are always out of step with each other, an immature child when others see him as an old man, and at the other end of his life an older man in a child's body. At a young age, when outwardly an old man, Tivoli falls for the young girl who lives in the flat below him, and much of the novel centres around his complicated lifelong love for Alice.This was a most frustrating read for me. For the first two thirds I couldn't wait for it to finish - I didn't give a fig for Max or any of the other characters, and felt that Greer was poorly repurposing an idea from one of writing's masters with little emotional substance. However, in the last third when everything started to be revealed, it did become more of a page-turner.3 stars - a great final burst, but disappointingly much too late.
    • 5/5
      great San Francisco history.
    • 1/5
      I was under the impression the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was based on this book. This is not the case. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a short story around 1921 with the same title. It amazes me the author has not been questioned about how similar the stories are.
    • 2/5
      Disappointing. A love story which draws all its affect from its fantastic premise. If you're looking for an undemanding, romantic, tragic tale with an interesting McGuffin, this is that - but it could have been so much more. The characterisation, in particular, is poor - you never get a sense of just what it is about the hero's lifelong beloved that makes his devotion to her so all-consuming, nor is there any real development other than that mandated by the plot events. It's a terrible passion which is neither terrible nor passionate, while the really terrible events - family breakups, desertions etc. - seem not to have much of an effect on anyone. Tivoli's topsy-turvy life, including an off-stage war, doesn't appear to alter him a jot. Perhaps this is the point? But I found it hard to swallow when Greer sent to him to dissipate in a flophouse for several years only for a chance visit from his one true friend to make it all right again.The tone is self-consciously "confessional", the 1st person protagonist constantly addressing his beloved (presumptive reader) as "my sweet', "my love", "oh my dear" etc etc. The prose too is sentimental, oozing with romantic flourishes which nauseate after a while. There's a road-trip tacked on at the end, which just shows that Greer writes about the rest of America in the same cloying, period-clichéd way he describes turn-of-the-century San Francisco. The author has plotted diligently and been sure to dot the narrative with stand-out historical events, but the artifice is apparent. I wish he had been more ambitious and not used the concept and setting (one of my favourites) in the service of such a one-dimensional romance.I'd rate it less than 4/10, but I sense that it was written and sold as a book-group romance, and on those terms I suppose it's a success.
    • 4/5
      This is quite simply a beautifully told, deeply moving story. Max Tivoli is born in 1871, wrinkled, palsied, and blind with the cataracts of a 70-year old man. Max, it seems, is a physical oddity -- his body will age backwards. Warned by his parents never to let anyone know the truth, Max follows "The Rule" most of his life, and considers himself cursed, a "Monster".
      The story is told from Max’s point of view, as if writing an autobiographical history to his son Sammy. As the story starts out, Max (58 years old and passing himself off as 12), has managed to insinuate himself into his son’s life in order to be near him. The story of Max’s life mostly revolves around Alice, the love of his life who he unfortunately meets when he is 17 and she is 14. Since he looks like a 53-year old, he can’t pursue her as any other normal boy. Other than his family, the other major relationship in his life is Hughie, who he meets on his first real outing at a park when the boys are both 6 years old. Too young and surprised to see a real boy close up for the first time to censor himself, Max blurts out to Hughie the truth about his age. After questioning him, Hughie believes him and begins a life-long friendship.

      The author’s writing is beautifully descriptive, even if it seems melodramatic at times. And some of his similes definitely need work. But these are nitpicks in an otherwise wonderful novel. One small warning -- have a box of Kleenex handy when you begin the book. I’ll admit I cried at several different passages.

      I would highly recommend Confessions as a book club selection due to its many layers, themes, and the situations the characters experience.
    • 2/5
      Recommended to me by a friend, this is a good book - but not one that really suited my mood this week. It's a melancholy musing on the futility of love.

      The narrator, Max Tivoli, was born appearing to be a wizened old man of 70 - and for his entire life, ages backwards, gaining perspective and experience as physically, he becomes younger.

      At 17 (when he appears to be an elderly gentleman), he meets the love of his life, Alice. However, she falls in love with Max's best friend, the young and handsome Hughie. Max has an affair with Alice's mother instead, but the two women move away when the elder notices Max's seemingly perverted attentions to her daughter.

      Years later, Max rediscovers Alice and, under an assumed identity, marries her. They are happy for a while, but then she leaves him for another man.

      Hughie sticks by Max's side, even as he gets younger and younger.
      When Max appears to be only 11, he concocts a scheme to infiltrate Alice's life yet again, this time becoming her adopted son.
      However, he drags Hughie into this scheme - not considering the emotional ramifications - that Alice has always loved Hughie, and that Hughie, all these years, has actually loved Max.
      No one actually ever gets to have and keep what they truly want.

      The language of the book is very flowery - some may find it to be a bit much. Max is a rather self-pitying character - not as loathsome as he makes himself out to be, but not that attractive, either.

      [Goodreads has done its job for me! I picked up a copy of this on the free shelf at work, and nearly started reading it again... until this review reminded me that I've already read it. So, update: around 7 years later, I didn't find this book too memorable.]
    • 5/5
      One of the best novels I have read in a long time. Tightly constructed, beautifully written, with rich vocabulary and characters who are humanly flawed and tragically sympathetic. I took notes as I read to remind myself of the new words I encountered and the exquisite craft technique that the author showed.
    • 5/5
      Max Tivoli is an odd person. He is born an old man and is growing old even though his body becomes younger. His parents at first keep him mostly hidden, cared for by a Maid and his grandmother. Slowly, he is allowed to interact with others and find companions, such as Hughie, who simply accepts him for who or what he is.The book is very thoughtful. It explores interactions among people and the psychology not only of being different but of the process of aging and the disparity between people of different ages. The writing is beautiful--so evocative of a time in the past and a pervasive love. Amazingly--in the middle of the book--I realized that the name of the “monster” and the woman he loved were Max and Alice--the exact names of my parents! I think this is a gorgeous love story. There is something about a forbidden love or a transient love that almost has more power than a love which is consummated and then allowed to fade over time. I found this book very passionate--both in emotion and in thoughts. It made me think about the transient nature of relationships--among acquaintances, friends, family, and the great loves of a person’s life. This book examines these from all angles so poignantly and in such a beautiful manner.I really, really loved this book. I thought the writing was beautiful in how well it expressed the agonies, not only of unrequited love, but also what it's like being "different" in today's society. Although the premise of the story (a person being born old and growing younger) might not be real, being considered a "monster" in today's society (for various reasons in which one person might be different from another) is certainly true enough. The thoughts about which Max wrote show a real understanding of the pain of such marginalization.Another reason I was impressed with this story was its mind-bending aspect! I had enough of a problem trying to figure out how a person who is growing younger while others are growing older would relate psychologically, physically, and chronologically to others...but the author made it all seem so easy! He did it with such eloquence. I really got into the character of Max, felt for him, and much appreciated the character of Hughie, a true friend.There were some chords that struck unusually close to home. Max and Alice (the two most important characters in this novel) were also the names of my parents! I believe that the author grew up in Rockville, Maryland (my home town).
    • 3/5
      Max Tivoli is aging backwards. When he was born, he resembled an old man. He knows he will die in 1941, so he is aging backwards from 70 years old. When he is 17 (but looks like a man in his 50s), he falls in love with 14-year old Alice. Of course, he can't do anything about it. He loves Alice for the rest of his life and does meet her again when they are both in their 30s. She doesn't recognize him from when she was 14. It was ok. It was sometimes hard to follow as Max went back and forth in time from when he was writing to tell the “confessions” of his life, and the dividing line in time wasn't always clear. I certainly didn't agree with many of the things Max did or decisions he made. I did think the end “fit”.
    • 4/5
      It's basically a less romantic, creepier version of Benjamin Button. It doesn't really seem to have anything new to add so if you've already seen the movie of that there's not much point to reading this book.
    • 5/5
      This novel reminded me of Fitzgerald's short story "Benjamin Button" - in that it is about a baby that is born an old man and as he ages his body gets younger and younger. Written as a memoir it is a story of the joys of childhood, the importance of finding love and the enduring power of friendship. Max's life journey is wrought with mixed emotions as he wishes his body was like others' his age and then deals with both unrequited love and the loss of his relationships. "The Confessions of Max Trivoli" is a powerful novel that will draw you in as you fall under the spell of the easy read and then will make you live the life of a man cursed to live in a child's body as his friends and loved ones age. You will cry but they will be tears shed with the knowledge that Max's curse may have been difficult to live with but he lived the fullest life knowing how important the little things really are.
    • 5/5
      This is a book that just floored me-it's really a worthwhile book of creative fiction about a man who ages in reverse and hides it from most everyone. He is running out of time the opposite way everyone else is...He knows he will inevitably become a child and then infant...it's heartbreaking on so many levels.
    • 3/5
      I think I would have enjoyed this story more if I hadn't seen the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It was written before the movie came out and the movie was not based on the book, but it was the same concept. A man is born as an old, wrinkly man and grows backwards-- younger and younger until he has the body of a young child but the mind and life experiences of an old man.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I read this one just after reading Behind the Scenes at the Museum , which was interesting, because both stories begin just before the birth of the narrator. In this case, Max Tivoli. He’s born an old man of about 70, meaning he’s young on the inside, but looks old on the outside. As he ages internally, he grows younger externally. This is the story of his life. It’s well-written and interesting, tying in historical events (the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, for one) and capturing the world through the eyes of a man who isn’t seen for who he is by the world.About a day-long read, a fun and occasionally thought-provoking distraction.
    • 5/5
      When I first started it, I was extremely doubtful. The premise sounded interesting, but the writing was so thick and wordy. Something about it just left me extremely bored. I didn't really care about Max and none of his problems got me interested.I'm not sure where that changed. At some point it got super deep and fascinating and I found myself wishing I were reading it whenever I wasn't. The last half sped by. I finally got to the point where I didn't want to put it down. The wordy writing turned eloquent and beautiful, and my heart started to break a bit with every new problem Max had to go through.Sometimes he was stupid. Sometimes I couldn't believe the choices he made. But I don't think I ever hated him. It was all too tragic and perhaps beautiful.In short, it's a very beautiful and powerful book. Yet, I'm still not sure if I liked it or not.
    • 4/5
      This 2004 novel tells of a guy who lives his life backwards--he starts out with the body of an old man and gets younger instead of older. The concept is worked out fairly well, and of course he has lots of problems but it makes for an interesting and ultimately poignant story. While I suppose not a 'manly' book I found it good reading, and not as "precious" as say "Memoirs of a Geisha" orother maybe designed for women books.
    • 3/5
      I finished Andrew Sean Greer's The Confessions of Max Tivoli not for the story, but for the prose. Greer unspools lyrical chains of words, primarily description but aphorisms are scattered throughout, appearing every 10 or 20 pages. The prose in these instances is arresting and almost out of place, in the sense my attention shifts immediately from following the plot to appreciating the wordcraft. The story is suited to the premise, though. Max's journal unfolds prosaically, not strictly chronological and functioning a bit like a thriller, with unexpected (for me) turns of fate and coincidence which seem ludicrously obvious, in retrospect. But also, inevitable: when a boy's life hinges on the fact that he grows older, mentally and in experience, even as his body grows younger, from a newborn senility to a doddering infancy, the major turning points in relationships are a given. Greer handles them well, not avoiding them or running from them, but fitting them to his tale so it seems he chose them. In fact, he could have chosen little else. In the end, it's interesting to note how common Max's life was, in terms of his friendships and his internal dramas, despite the enourmous challenges of his whimsical condition. Perhaps the best that could be made from such a premise, after all.I know of two movies using similar premises: The Curious Life of Benjamin Button, based upon a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald; and the Tom Hanks vehicle, Big. There are other kin, including a minor character in Phantom Tollbooth and (thanks to another LT review) the Jonathan Winter's character in Mork & Mindy. Greer successfully avoids having his book seem like a mere copy, though I've not read or seen the Benjamin Button story to know how derivative it might be.I was surprised at the poignancy of the ending sections (there are no proper chapters, just four parts divided into sections to mimic new entries in a diary). The end is logical, given the fantastical premise, so it's not a surprise, exactly. But it emphasizes the parallel situations (physical, mental) between children and the elderly, and is all the more emotional for it. I think it avoids becoming overly sentimental or even saccharine, but I might disagree if I read it a second time. (I give the book 3 rather than 2 stars based upon the effect the ending had on me.)I've grown tired of the literary conceit of publishing an alleged "found text", with the author pretending to serve merely as editor rather than creator. Greer leans on this device, and saves himself primarily in the clever details (and brevity) of his "A Note on the Text".
    • 3/5
      The idea behind this book is great: what happens to someone who is aging backward and thus cannot be with the love of his life? But Max Tivoli is such an unpleasant guy, that the big love felt like a crazy obsession and I couldn’t relate to the story, which is very important to me in reading a book.
    • 1/5
      “I just wanted the main character to die so that the book would be over.” – a fellow book club member
      So, I didn’t feel quite that strongly about Max, but I did return it to the library as soon as I was finished, and I did thank the book gods that I hadn’t bought it. I was so anxious to be done with this book that I forgot to keep it around long enough for reviewing purposes, so I have no quotes or passages to back up anything I say. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

      I was so ready to love this book. It had a super interesting premise and it was well-written. A male child is born to a couple and has the face and body of an old man. Now, I understand that certain books require a suspension of disbelief, and I’m okay with that as long as authors follow their own rules. Max Tivoli is born infant sized. There is no description of his mother being torn apart while trying to, literally, birth a man-child, yet later on in the book we are lead to believe that Max appears as an adult (when he is a child) and will shrink in height and physically grow younger until he turns into an infant- which seems to contradict him being born an infant. He starts off as a child appearing to be about 70 years old.
      We are told that from the very beginning that Max’s mother has advised him to act the age that he appears to be as opposed to the age his is, but I don’t feel that we ever got any insight as how he goes about doing that or how such deception makes him feel. There are so many interesting places that this book should have lead. How does it feel to grow up with the face of an old man? How does it feel as a child to be forced to interact with people older than you? How does it feel to be physically old when you should be want to run around and play? How does it affect your interactions with your family and people who know your family; people in general? There were so many interesting questions that I would have liked to have just a glimmer of in the narration. Nope. The character is totally isolated and doesn’t make friends or try to interact with anyone besides Hughie, Alice and Madame Dupont – a brothel owner who used to be a maid in his house.

      I think Greer was trying to build this great love story where we watch Max get his shot at love three times over a lifetime, as he appears to his love, Alice, as three different versions of himself. The main problem with this is the character of Max Tivoli. The novel collapses under the weight of a completely self centered and uninteresting narrator. It’s never clear why he loves Alice so much, and so his great love always seems like a juvenile crush that he hasn’t had the opportunity to mature into the depths of love that man might feel. Max is also too self-centered to give any of the other characters more than cursory consideration so we don’t get to know or understand them. I found the character of Hughie to be intriguing from the little I could glean from Max’s spare treatment of him, and he appears to be tormented by a secret, but Max doesn’t ever think to ask his best friend what is bothering him, and by the time Hughie’s secret is revealed it’s anti-climactic and to me, implausible.

      Greer is a talented writer. He knows his way around a sentence and his descriptive abilities are very good, but the character of Max failed to move me, which is the kiss of death for any character and also kills the book when that character is the one telling the story. I was bored. This would have been helped had the narrative more fully addressed the realities and limitations/benefits of Max’s unique existence, but as a character he always fails to engage. He even meets someone he suspects is like him, and he doesn’t even talk to the person! Greer is a good writer, so I would be curious to read something else of his, but knowing what I know about Max Tivoli I would be quicker to jump ship if his next main character didn’t engage me rather quickly.
    • 4/5
      Which came first: Max Tivoli or TimeTraveler's Wife? The truth is that to me it doesn't really matterwhich was published first; what matters is what I read first and thatwas Time Traveler's Wife. Consequently, Max feels like an uglieryounger sister.Max is the story of a man whose body ages backwards; that is, Max isborn old and gradually becomes younger and younger. Complicating hislife is his love for a woman who, sadly, ages normally.The idea for the story is clever and Max is a sympathetic figure, butI never had that can't-put-the-book-down feeling.
    • 4/5
      It has a very interesting premise. It is well-written. It keeps you turning the pages to find out how it will end...Did I mention it has a very interesting premise?But... it lacks a connection to the reader. There is little feeling/sympathy generated for Max. It's an interesting "study" of a very odd "disease" from an outsiders look in, but... Max himself is uninteresting and un-engaging, making the book feel like a non-fiction.Not that this makes it bad, just that it doesn't end up being as good as I had hoped.
    • 4/5
      Ages backward like Benjamin Button.
    • 3/5
      Max Tivoli has a unique problem. He was born as a 70 year old infant who shortly grew into the body of a 70 year old man with the mind of an infant. His chronology was reversed his entire life except for one brief period of time when his age and his appearance came together. This is an unusual premise I thought posed all kinds of interesting situations for an author to resolve. Unfortunately, Andrew Sean Greer chose to focus on one particular element in Max's life, and he made it an obsession.Max first meets Alice Levy when she is 14 years old; mentally he is close to the same age. However, Max looks like a man in his 60's, so it is inappropriate for a man with his appearance to be pursuing a young girl with any kind of serious intentions. Yet Max has serious intentions. He deeply loves Alice and wants to spend his life with her. This is impossible for him at the time in which they meet.The rest of Max's story is about his obsession with Alice and how it affects everything else in his life. With that in mind, the author skips over or minimizes details that should have some priority in Max's life. For instance: Max has the same job for 20 years, yet no one with whom he works ever notices that while they're growing older, Max is getting younger? He might be able to carry that off for a few years, but it's odd that his co-workers didn't question that the 50-something year old man who was hired for the job became a 30-something hunk.There were times reading about Max became very tedious. He's so self-involved to the exclusion of everything else that he becomes less and less sympathetic as the story progresses. The convenience with which problems seem to miraculously melt away from him stretches credibility entirely too far. Max's story begins with the words We are each the love of someone's life." Eliminate all the flaws in this book, and what Green has written is the tragic confession of a man who, through no fault of his own, was dealt a terrible hand at birth. The way his circumstances impact the lives of those around him make this book worth reading.
    • 4/5
      Max Tivoli is a man whose body ages backwards -- he is born looking 70 and slowly advances toward childhood. He shares his secret with precious few and instead tries to follow The Rule: Be what they think you are. Thus, as a teenager, he passes for a middle-aged man, and as an old man acts as a boy. The story was reasonably well done and it was easy enough to suspend disbelief while listening. Nonetheless, I never came to love Max as a character, nor did I love Alice, the love of Max's life. The book might have interested me more if it explored Max telling Alice (or others) about his condition rather than maintaining his secret. The reader for the audio version does an excellent job.
    • 4/5
      Although our library copy has a Sci-Fi sticker on the spine, this is sci-fi like The Time Traveler’s Wife is sci-fi – not really. Yes, Max is living his internal life backward while in a body that goes through the normal physical stages, but really it’s about love – or obsessive love. When Max first sees Alice, his downstairs lodger, it’s love at first sight. All would be fine except that with his condition, while he may feel seventeen inside, he looks 50-something on the outside – hardly the great attractor to Alice at fourteen. The book follows Max’s trials through life as he pursues Alice in his many “disguises.” Greer doesn’t pretend that Max’s obsession is all for the good. There definitely is an element of selfishness in Max – he has hurt people. Ultimately the book is really about how we always seem to love the person we can’t have. Alice has loved Max’s closet gay friend Hughie (it’s the late 1800’s when the love story begins), Hughie has pined for Max, albeit in a quiet and non-demonstrative way, and, of course, Max is obsessed with Alice. Greer is pretty magical with words as well as story line.
    • 5/5
      Oh my! This has to have been one of the most gut-wrenching and heartbreaking stories I've read in a long time. The author's prose style is absolutely exquisite, and by the end of the book, don't be surprised if you're reaching for a tissue. I don't think I'll leave this one behind mentally for some time. Very highly recommended.The premise of the book (which, if I had to classify it in a genre, I don't know if I could do so -- maybe along the lines of "fanstastical" if that's any help) is that when the main character, Max Tivoli, was born, he was born with the physical traits of an old man and as he aged chronologically, he became younger. So that when he was 14, he looked like he was in his late 50s, and then steadily grew younger looking as he got older. Max's story begins with his birth, then takes us through childhood, his teens, middle age, and then his last years. It is the story of Max finding and losing the love of his life, not once, but three times. Each time he finds her, he is a different person to her, because of course, he changes backwards in time; each time he finds her, the relationship changes. It is his overwhelming love for this woman that transcends his own condition here -- and it is this that really is the main thrust of the story.An absolutely delightful and thought-provoking novel; it hit me right in the gut. To be honest, there isn't that much fiction over my lifespan that has left me with this kind of reaction; when it does, I consider it a very fine book. I very highly recommend this one.
    • 5/5
      Inventive. Thought-provoking. Riveting. I started this book with some hesitation. By the time I was a third of the way through it, I realized this would be one story that would stay with me for a long time. Great read.
    • 4/5
      A heartbreaking story of a man who is born old and ages backwards. He falls in love with a girl and has different interactions and moments with her through his lifetime.Greer did a great job of developing Max Tivoli's character throughout the whole transition of his life. It was tough at times to read because you know his happiness won't last as he progressively got younger. Alice, Max's love, was the weakest part of the story. She seemed almost unworthy of Max's love and devotion because she was so flaky and unlikable as a character. Otherwise, this book was very enjoyable.