The Story of My Teeth - Softcover

Valeria Luiselli

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1783780827 ISBN 13: 9781783780822

Publisher: Granta Books, 2016

Synopsis

Gustavo 'Highway' Sanchez is a man with a mission: he is planning to replace every last one of his unsightly teeth. He has a few skills that might help him on his way: he can imitate Janis Joplin after two rums, he can interpret Chinese fortune cookies, he can stand an egg upright on a table, and he can float on his back. And, of course, he is the world's best auction caller - although other people might not realise this, because he is, by nature, very discreet. Studying auctioneering under Grandmaster Oklahoma and the famous country singer Leroy Van Dyke, Highway travels the world, amassing his collection of 'Collectibles' and perfecting his own specialty: the allegoric auction. In his quest for a perfect set of pearly whites, he finds unusual ways to raise the funds, culminating in the sale of the jewels of his collection: the teeth of the 'notorious infamous' - Plato, Petrarch, Chesterton, Virginia Woolf et al. Written with elegance, wit and exhilarating boldness, Valeria Luiselli takes us on an idiosyncratic and hugely enjoyable journey that offers an insightful meditation on value, worth and creation, and the points at which they overlap.

About this title

About the Author:

Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City in 1983 and grew up in South Africa. In 2014 she was honored as part of the National Book Foundation's list of ''5 under 35.'' Her debut novel, Faces in the Crowd, earned rave reviews and won the Los Angeles Times' 2015 Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Luiselli's fiction and essays have been translated into many languages, and her work has appeared in such publications as Granta, McSweeney's, and the New York Times

Review:

''The Story of My Teeth explores the meaning of home through the antics of an auctioneer, told in his own hyperbolic fashion, who has decided views on the meaning of value and worth in life and art.'' --BBC.com

''This kind of writing -- direct and gentle, affectionate and satirical, precise and imaginative, memorable and efficient -- appears throughout, and the character of Gustavo is brought to life with exquisite imaginative power and beautifully judged tics and cadences...It is a sad, beautiful, and brilliant book. It will endure.'' --National (Abu Dhabi)

''A fiercely intelligent, inventive, and hilarious exploration of worth, value, and creation in the worlds of art and literature.'' --Bookanista

''Surprising and charming...It's difficult not to follow wherever it takes you.'' --Publishers Weekly (starred and boxed review)

''A lively, loopy experimental novel rich with musings on language, art, and, yes, teeth...The whole book is a kind of extended commentary on how possessions acquire value largely through the stories we tell about them....A clever philosophical novel that, as the author puts it, has 'less to do with lying than surpassing the truth.' '' --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

''The Story of My Teeth has a Joycean playfulness with words, events, structure, literary theory, languages, and human nature.'' --Midwest Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Granta Books
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1783780827
• ISBN 13: 9781783780822
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208