More about the book
In 2012, Sarah Ruhl was a distinguished author and playwright, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Max Ritvo, a student in her playwriting class at Yale University, was an exuberant, opinionated, and highly gifted poet. He was also in remission from pediatric cancer. Over the next four years--in which Ritvo's illness returned and his health declined, even as his productivity bloomed--the two exchanged letters that spark with urgency, humor, and the desire for connection. Reincarnation, books, 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 a 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 purchase
Letters from Max, Sarah Ruhl, Max Ritvo, Elizabeth McCracken
- Language
- Released
- 2019
- Binding
- (Paperback)
Payment methods
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- Title
- Letters from Max
- Subtitle
- A Poet, a Teacher, a Friendship
- Language
- English
- Authors
- Sarah Ruhl, Max Ritvo, Elizabeth McCracken
- Publisher
- Milkweed Editions
- Released
- 2019
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 336
- ISBN10
- 1571313753
- ISBN13
- 9781571313751
- Series
- Tags
- Non-Fiction, True Stories, Biographies, Religious Topics, Philosophical Topics, Spirituality, Autobiographies & Memoirs, Friendship, Creative Nonfiction, USA, American Literature, Opinion Journalism & Essays, Death, Writing, America, Correspondence, Sadness
- Rating
- 4.15 out of 5
- Description
- In 2012, Sarah Ruhl was a distinguished author and playwright, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Max Ritvo, a student in her playwriting class at Yale University, was an exuberant, opinionated, and highly gifted poet. He was also in remission from pediatric cancer. Over the next four years--in which Ritvo's illness returned and his health declined, even as his productivity bloomed--the two exchanged letters that spark with urgency, humor, and the desire for connection. Reincarnation, books, 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 a 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.