Letters from Max

Name: Letters from Max
Brand: Unknown
SKU: 9781571313751
Price: 32.99 NZD
Availability: InStock

A Poet, a Teacher, a Friendship

By Max Ritvo and Sarah Ruhl

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4.3

( 731 ratings, 124 reviews)

Summary

Letters from Max is a poignant exchange of letters and poems between poet Max Ritvo, living with terminal cancer, and playwright Sarah Ruhl, serving as a testament to their deep bond and creative partnership. The memoir beautifully captures their conversations on life, art, and mortality, celebrating the power of language and friendship in the face of adversity. Through their correspondence, readers experience a rich exploration of hope and resilience.
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Format: Paperback / softback

$32⁹⁹

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Letters from Max

$32⁹⁹

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You may appreciate this book if you enjoy heartwarming and profound exchanges that delve into themes of life, illness, and art. This touching correspondence between a young poet facing terminal illness and an established playwright is full of insights, tender humour, and deep friendship, offering a unique perspective on creativity and human resilience.

Letters from Max

"I will read more books in my life but I will not love another book more than this one." -MARY-LOUISE PARKER

Promotional item for bookseller and library campaign

Reading Group Guide available on Edelweiss and downloadable on publisher’s site

Newsletter promotion via the publisher to nonfiction and poetry lists of more than 30,000 contacts

Promotion to authors’ massive mailing lists and via enhanced content on publisher’s website

Major event in collaboration with the Jungle Theater in Minneapolis, to be presented in tandem with Ruhl play The Oldest Boy

Description

In 2012, Sarah Ruhl was a distinguished, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. Max Ritvo, a student in her playwriting class at Yale University, was an exuberant, opinionated, intensely curious and intensely gifted poet in remission from paediatric cancer.

Over the next four years—in which Ritvo's illness returned and his health began to decline, even as his productivity bloomed—the two traded a series of letters that spark with urgency, humour, and the desire for connection. Reincarnation, the loving playfulness of postmodernism, 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 the 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.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Letters from Max receives widespread acclaim for its tender and profound exploration of friendship, mortality, and the necessity of art. It is praised for its honest and moving portrayal of human connection and illness, drawing comparisons to seminal literary correspondences. Critics highlight the book's emotional depth, lyrical beauty, and the heartfelt humour between Max Ritvo and Sarah Ruhl, creating a work that resonates deeply with readers.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781571313751

Publisher: Milkweed Editions

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 24 October 2019

Country: United States

Imprint: Milkweed Editions

Illustration: Five black and white photographs

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 139.0mm

Height: 215.0mm

Weight: 0g

Pages: 336

Collections

Biography & Memoir Journals Max Ritvo Non-Fiction Sarah Ruhl Stationery

About the Author

Sarah Ruhl is a playwright, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, Tony Award nominee, and author of the book 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She has been the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Whiting Writers' Award, the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a midcareer playwright, and the Steinberg Award. She is currently on the faculty of the Yale School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn with her family.Max Ritvo (19902016) was the author, with Sarah Ruhl, of Letters from Max. He was also the author of two collections of poems, Four Reincarnations and The Final Voicemails, which were published by Milkweed Editions in 2016 and 2018. His chapbook, Aeons, was chosen by Jean Valentine to receive the Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship in 2014. Ritvo's poetry has also appeared in the New Yorker and Poetry, among many other publications.