Awards
A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2004
A Chicago Tribune Best Book of 2004
A Newsday Favorite Book of 2004
A Miami Herald Noteworthy Book of 2004
A Christian Science Monitor Noteworthy Book of 2004
A Bookmarks Magazine Favorite Book of 2004
A Newcity Chicago Top 5 Book of 2004
A Journal News Best Book of 2004
Synopses & Reviews
Max Tivoli is writing the story of his life. He is nearly seventy years old, but he looks as if he is only seven - for Max is ageing backwards. The tragedy of Max's life was to fall in love at seventeen with Alice, a girl his own age - but to her, Max looks like an unappealingly middle-aged man. However when Max reaches the age of thirty-five, with an appearance to match, he has his second chance at love. But tragedy befalls this star-crossed couple, and desperate measures are required.
Review
"Heartrending...beautifully written...this is a rich and mesmerizing fable. Time will not reverse its impact." People (4-star critic's choice)
Review
"The Confessions of Max Tivoli leaves its readers in much the same state as its narrator: bewildered by the sheer unlikely strangeness of life and feeling somehow both younger and wiser on that account." Chris Lehmann, The Washington Post
Review
"Resplendently poetic and loftily sorrowing....Enchanting, in the perfumed, dandified style of disenchantment brought to grandeur by Proust and Nabokov." John Updike, The New Yorker
Review
"[A] serious work of literature, written with a precision of language and a depth of feeling that doesn't simply belie the book's quirky premise, it transforms it, elevates it from what could have been just another clever idea to a profound meditation on life, love and the inevitability of growing old....[Greer's near-flawless prose] often reads like poetry; the cadence and imagery create feelings more than simply describe them....Max Tivoli is entertaining and engaging enough to rival any fun, lighthearted fantasy paperback, while also so poetic, and so powerful, that it should please the most particular literary critic." Christopher Farah, Salon.com
Review
"[S]tellar....[A] novel whose structure resembles one of those earthquake-sound buildings, the kind with just enough play between the pillars to sway instead of cracking." San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"The Confessions of Max Tivoli is a wondrous novel, shimmering with simultaneous chords of sadness, loss and enchantment. The book also fascinates in its textured view of pre-quake San Francisco, a city of 'gilt-edged gas lamps and velvet walls.' [Greer has] arrived, brilliantly, with an unforgettable novel." Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"Enchanting....Like Proust, Greer presents life as essentially a solitude, an ever-renewed exile from the present, a shifting set of gorgeous mirages that nothing but descriptive genius can hold fast. Max writes, 'Life is short, and full of sorrows, and I loved it.' His poignantly awry existence, set out with such a wealth of verbal flourishes and gilded touches, serves as a heightened version of the strangeness, the muted disharmony, of being human." John Updike, The New Yorker
Review
"The secret to Greer's success in Max Tivoli is his delightfully overwrought voice, his willingness to luxuriate in Victorian conceits of self-pity, love, and confession. For a modern author, it requires balancing on the razor's edge between parody and profundity, and Greer sways precariously between the two in a way that makes it impossible to take your eyes off him." Ron Charles, The Christian Science Book Monitor (read the entire Christian Science Monitor Review)
Synopsis
Max Tivoli is writing the story of his life. He is nearly seventy years old, but he looks as if he is only seven - for Max is ageing backwards. The tragedy of Max's life was to fall in love at seventeen with Alice, a girl his own age - but to her, Max looks like an unappealingly middle-aged man. However when Max reaches the age of thirty-five, with an appearance to match, he has his second chance at love. But tragedy befalls this star-crossed couple, and desperate measures are required.