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Letters from Max
A Poet, a Teacher, a Friendship
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Check link for latest rating. ( 731 ratings, 124 reviews)
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Letters from Max
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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?
"I will read more books in my life but I will not love another book more than this one." -MARY-LOUISE PARKER
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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: 250g
Pages: 336
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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.
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