The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer

Set in late 19th and early 20th century San Francisco, The Confessions of Max Tivoli is the remarkable story of a man born with a 70-year-old body that ages backwards. Opening with the statement, "We are each the love of someone's life," Max's tale is told as a long love letter to a woman named Alice, who he first falls in love with as a lad of 17 (looking at the time like a 53-year-old man) and continues to love throughout the remaining years of his achingly sad and occasionally comical life. Max's real age and his apparent age will always add up to 70, thus at 17 he has the countenance of a stately older gentleman and at 58 he inhabits the body of a gangly boy. It is only at the midpoint of his life that Max, for a few brief years, is close to the age he appears to be. The tragedy of Max's life is that he can never truly be himself. Following the adage imparted by his mother, to "Be what they think you are," Max does not share his secret with many in the outside world. Tivoli's novel bears many similarities to a 1922 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," in which the protagonist is born with the body of a seventy-year-old man. A film adaptation of the Fitzgerald story is scheduled for release in December 2008, featuring Brad Pitt in the title role.