Allen & Unwin The Confessions of Max Tivoli book Literary fiction English Paperback 288 pages

'This is the kind of book that makes you laugh out loud, write notes in the margins and shed tears onto its pages. The Confessions of Max Tivoli is a thing of beauty.' Neil LaButeMax Tivoli is a narrator like no other, and this is a heartbreaking love story. At his birth, Max 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. When Max is 17, he falls in love with a neighbour girl, Alice, who ages normally. 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 backdrop of San Francisco at the turn of the twentieth century, it's tale of love lost then found which achieves an emotional resonance that is unforgettable.