For everyone the process of aging is a linear experience. For everyone, that is, except for Max Tivoli. We are gradually stepping in the same forward direction to that inevitable point somewhere along the road, our bodies changing from young to old in a parallel line with our minds. This may all sound simplistic, but how often do we consider the effect that aging has on the way we view the world? Or, more importantly for Max, the way it views us? This is the central conceit behind Andrew Sean Greer's The Confession of Max Tivoli, which is newly out in paperback.
Max provides us with a unique perspective on what it means for our bodies to age because his is doing it backwards. Greer explains all of this in a perfectly vague way. Through the lens of Max's memory and Greer's adeptness at magic-realism, all of this seems quite plausible. What makes it work, of course, is that the main concept of the story (that of Max aging backwards) is just another part of what is essentially a turn of the century American love story. Because of his condition, Max is able to meet his love, Sally, at three different points in their lives, albeit each under very different circumstances: when Max looks old but they are both young, when they both look the age they are, and when Max looks young but they are both old.
His mother advises him, "Be what they think you are," and by consequence he rarely lets himself be who he really is. These are therefore confessions of who he truly he is, and his lifetime of deception can be quite creepy at times, in a subtle way. Max pursues Sally over the course of his reversed life betraying his friends and his family to be with her. It's to Greer's credit that he doesn't make his self-described 'monster' too much of a good guy: he's greedy, lustful, and self-pitying. It's hard not to be at least slightly disturbed by the idea of old-looking Max Tivoli trying to kiss a young Sally, even though you know he's really young himself. But Max (and Greer) is just enough of a romantic to give these scenes a touch of tragedy which brings them above the perverse.
"Life is short, and full of sorrows, and I loved it. Who can say why?" says Max, lamenting the leaving of the love of his life. I could say the same for The Confessions of Max Tivoli. It's flawed, predictable, and scattered profusely with heavy-handed sentiment. But Greer's prose is startlingly unforced and feels anything but modern. It's short, full of well-fleshed characters, and worth reading.
