Story Of My Teeth - Hardcover

'A combination of memoir, fiction, art criticism and autobiographical reflection, this is a remarkable story about stories... The Story of My Teeth is a testament to eccentricity. If eccentricity is deviation from a known curve, then Luiselli has created an exceptional 'novel-essay' that irradiates beyond the orthodoxies of literary genre' -- Frieze

'The Story of My Teeth flirts with the fantastical tendency of Latin American literature, blurring the line between the real and the imagined. [Full of] Luiselli's wit and her smart pay-off. Engaging' -- Financial Times

'It's a clever trick - producing both a slim magical realist 'essay-novel' and simultaneously a dense, allegorical art object - and Highway's sale pitches are little gems. ... The effect is quite moving' -- Literary Review

'The prose is confident, playful learned; and it is translated into utterly convincing English via Luiselli's collaboration with Christina MacSweeney' --Times Literary Supplement

'...The Story of My Teeth is a rich, provocative meditation on authenticity, heritage and personality.' --Chad W Post, Frankfurt Show Daily

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.