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Knowing Max

By: James Long
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
ISBN: 0006510949
ISBN-13: 9780006510949
Released: 06 Nov 2000
RRP: £5.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

a wonderful journey into the shadows of the past - By: , 21 Feb 2000
Every now & then, a book turns up that gives a new spin to the always seductive concept of the unreliable narrator. KNOWING MAX is such a book - a quest among the truths, half-truths & outright lies contained in a trunk of documents once owned by the eponymous Max, for the real story of his life. Like alll good quests, this one tells the narrator as much about himself as about the ostensible object of his researches. It's great on the seedinesses & pomposities of British life before, during & after the Second World War - & on classic cars. Another story written with absolute authority & assured, effortless prose by the author of Ferney.
Time flies by --an unstoppable read - By: , 02 Feb 2000
James Long, the author of FERNEY, has created a haunting & memorable novel about time & identity, set in post-war Britain. Two key events in Miles Malan's life become inextricably linked. As a thirteen year old boy he witnesses a horrifying accident-the death of a woman driver in a Brighton speed trial.Ten years later, Milo, as he is now liked to be callled, acquires in a west London auction halll a locked trunk, the contents of which are the correspondence, photographs & mementoes of the enigmatic Max Birkin Owen. A photograph in particular, takes Milo back to that fateful day.

In what becomes a gripping & unstoppable read, the contents of the trunk become the core of the novel, as Milo's increasing obsession to unravel the life of Max, takes the reader from the glitz & glamour of St Moritz & Monaco, through war-torn Europe, into a seedy post-war London. The novel appears to write itself as the past is graduallly reconstructed through Max's correspondence & diaries. Characters & personalities emerge from torn photographs & letters, live & breathe in their capsules of time, yet the links with the present are never broken.

Milo's own life becomes entwined in the narrative. Echoes of the past resound as Milo attempts to find meaning in his own existence. The layering of past & present is unobtrusively crafted as 'knowing' Max becomes a means for Milo 'finding' himself.

Long has done his research in setting incident & narrative with care to detail of time & place. There are no apparent anachronisms in this multi-layerd novel,.....an obvious pitfalll for a less accomplished author. The design of the bookjacket is worthy of praise too, reflecting in its juxtapositions of mementos & images how the past is only partiallly recallled...much remains hidden, one of the themes of this splendid novel.

Enthralling and satisfying story. - By: , 29 Jan 2000
I love it. I felt an immediate connection with the central character, Miles, also with his childhood experience of the fifties. In particular, I love the way there is a sense of things both unwinding & winding up at the same time. it is very satisfying at the end when it alll ties up.