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Max Zimmer

Goodreads Author

Born

in Basel, Switzerland

June 16

Genre

Fiction, Music, Religion

Influences

Family. Readers I trust. All my students along with many friends who’v ...more

Member Since

May 2012

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/maxxxer

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Called a raw new voice in American fiction by Rolling Stone magazine for his story "Utah Died for Your Sins," Pushcart Prize winner Max Zimmer was born in Switzerland, brought across the Atlantic at the age of four, and raised in Utah in the take-no-prisoners crucible of the Mormon faith. He earned a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Utah and was teaching fiction, working on a doctorate in writing, when he was invited East for a summer at Yaddo, an artists' retreat in the upstate New York town of Saratoga.

He never intended to stay in the East. He was there to finish a sprawling novel about the West and return home to his family and friends and the students he loved. But one reason for staying kept leading to another. From Yaddo he too Called a raw new voice in American fiction by Rolling Stone magazine for his story "Utah Died for Your Sins," Pushcart Prize winner Max Zimmer was born in Switzerland, brought across the Atlantic at the age of four, and raised in Utah in the take-no-prisoners crucible of the Mormon faith. He earned a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Utah and was teaching fiction, working on a doctorate in writing, when he was invited East for a summer at Yaddo, an artists' retreat in the upstate New York town of Saratoga.

He never intended to stay in the East. He was there to finish a sprawling novel about the West and return home to his family and friends and the students he loved. But one reason for staying kept leading to another. From Yaddo he took a job teaching fiction in the Writing Arts Program at a SUNY campus in the town of Oswego on the shore of Lake Ontario. It was there, in the summer of 1978, that If Where You're Going Isn't Home was first conceived, as a long love story. From Oswego, he gravitated toward the city, lived and tended bar in Manhattan, and wrote for the power industry to pay the rent while he kept writing fiction, practicing and developing his craft. After seven years, more than ready for the mainland again, he moved to the northwest corner of New Jersey, where he married his wife Toni and settled in to write If Where You're Going Isn't Home from the beginning.

He still lived with the sense that Utah was his home. That he'd come East on some kind of visa. That after this thing, and then that thing, he'd get around to making the move back. Then, coming back from a visit to Utah one winter, he got off the plane at Newark Airport and headed for the door off the second floor of the terminal that led to a small roof where people stepped out for a smoke before heading for the baggage carousels downstairs. It was night, the high lights wore the halos of a cold mist, the whine of idling jets came from the tarmac, baggage trucks trailed their toy carts around below him, and the deep raw whistling hum of the highways came out of the surrounding night. And there it was. That singular response. That dimension of depth and permanence. The East had become his home. Utah had become a place he was from, a place he wrote about.

Among Max's published works are poems, stories, reviews, magazine articles, short biographies, and liner notes for jazz albums. Success came quickly once he started writing. Following its nomination by Ray Carver, his first published story "Utah Died for Your Sins" was awarded the Pushcart Prize, and singled out in a Rolling Stone review. He has read at venues ranging from coffee shops to SUNY writers' conferences to the PEN New Writers Series. E.L. Doctorow, John Cheever, Jack Cady, Grace Paley, Lewis Turco, and John Gardner are among other established writers who have acknowledged and championed his writing and storytelling talent. On a coast-to-coast college tour following the release of Ragtime, Doctorow read his work in Utah and called it the best writing he'd seen the entire tour. After meeting him on a similar tour following the publication of Falconer, Cheever enthusiastically promoted his work for the last five years of his life.

As a break from the long and ambitious project that If Where You're Going Isn't Home has been, Max writes poetry, short fiction, and for the last seven years an anything-goes humor and human interest column under the heading "Actual Mileage" -- inspired by a Ray Carver story -- for an automotive magazine with an international readership. As a rare break from writing period, he'll go out and hear some musicians he knows play jazz, spend time with his family, hang out with a circle of local writers, or take his homebuilt Porsche Speedster out and spend a couple of evening hours lost on the roads through the woods and hills and farmland out toward the Delaware River and the Poconos. ...more

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Max Zimmer’s books

Average rating: 4.45 · 38 ratings · 5 reviews · 17 distinct works • Similar authors

	Journey 4.05 avg rating — 20 ratings — published 2012 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Of the World (If Where You're Going Isn't Home, #2) 4.92 avg rating — 12 ratings — published 2013 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Not Into Night it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Actual Mileage: Stories by Max Zimmer 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2014 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Utah Died for Your Sins it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Unsere Reise durch Indien, Java und Ceylon im Jahre 1910 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2014 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Der Stern, Vol. 53: Eine Zeitschrift der Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage; 1. Januar 1921 (Classic Reprint) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Der Stern, Vol. 52: Eine Zeitschrift Der Kirche Jesu Christi Der Heiligen Der Letzten Tage; 1. Dezember 1920 (Classic Reprint) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Der Stern, Vol. 68: Eine Zeitschrift der Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage; 1. Dezember, 1936 (Classic Reprint) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Der Stern, Vol. 68: Eine Zeitschrift Der Kirche Jesu Christi Der Heiligen Der Letzten Tage; 1. Dezember, 1936 (Classic Reprint) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Series by Max Zimmer

If Where You're Going Isn't Home (3 books)
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Max Zimmer (Goodreads Author)

4.43 avg rating — 35 ratings

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Not Into Night

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May 30, 2020 02:24PM

Max’s Quotes

“Only that which happens is possible.”
― Franz Kafka

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“The work of the artist is to lift up people's hearts and help them endure.”
― William Faulkner

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Max’s Friend Comments

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message 2: by Max

Nov 01, 2014 07:38AM

Dillon wrote: "Max, thank you for accepting my friend request.
I've downloaded and look forward to reading Journey.
Wish you the very best!"

Dillon, sorry to be late in replying, but thanks for asking, and for downloading Journey. Hope you enjoy it!

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message 1: by Dale

Sep 24, 2014 07:59PM

Max, thank you for accepting my friend request.
I've downloaded and look forward to reading Journey.
Wish you the very best!

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