The Story of My Teeth - by Valeria Luiselli (Paperback)

About the Book

Bon vivant, world traveler, auctioneer--the story of Highway and his teeth is like Johnny Cash meets Robert Walser in Mexico.

Book Synopsis

Bon vivant, world traveler, auctioneer--the story of Highway and his teeth is like Johnny Cash meets Robert Walser in Mexico.

Highway is a late-in-life world traveller, yarn spinner, collector, and legendary auctioneer. His most precious possessions are the teeth of the 'notorious infamous' like Plato, Petrarch, and Virginia Woolf. Written in collaboration with the workers at a Jumex juice factory, Teeth is an elegant, witty, exhilarating romp through the industrial suburbs of Mexico City and Luiselli's own literary influences.

Review Quotes

Praise for The Story of My Teeth

A Kirkus Best Book of the 21st Century (So Far)
A Literary Hub Best Translated Novel of the Decade

"[The Story of My Teeth is] proof that Valeria Luiselli is one of the most exciting new writers working today." --Los Angeles Times

"Come for the absurdist comedy, stay for the references to great writers and philosophers and see how in on the joke you really are." --Vulture

"Playfully brilliant." --BuzzFeed

"Highly inventive. . . . A work of immense charm and originality, written in vivid, witty prose." --The New Yorker

"Luiselli's unstintingly imaginative tale perhaps works as a parable for the way works accrue value in the art world." --The Guardian

Playful, attentive and very smart without being for a minute pretentious. It's Walter Benjamin without tears--sunnier, more casual and more nimble." --The New York Times Sunday Book Review

"This giddy, witty, idiosyncratic novel . . . is a jubilant celebration of the act of storytelling." --The Wall Street Journal

"A playful, philosophical funhouse of a read that demonstrates that not only isn't experimental fiction dead, it needn't be deadly, either." --NPR

"Although buoyant, Luiselli's work never seems flippant, perhaps because of her precise prose style. . . . Linear at first glance, it soon opens out into a world of stories, like a mouth with one tooth from every artist in the world." --The Chicago Tribune

"This charmingly slippery slip of a book, packed with fantastical allusions, reminds us that the world's great stories can be ours for a very reasonable price." --The San Francisco Chronicle

"Wonderful, unusual." --Paris Review Daily

"In a delicately layered, wryly funny fashion, Luiselli is exploring the actual value of telling made-up stories." --HuffPost

Praise for The Story of My Teeth

A Kirkus Best Book of the 21st Century (So Far)
A Literary Hub Best Translated Novel of the Decade

"[The Story of My Teeth is] proof that Valeria Luiselli is one of the most exciting new writers working today." -Los Angeles Times

"Come for the absurdist comedy, stay for the references to great writers and philosophers and see how in on the joke you really are." --Vulture

"Playfully brilliant." --BuzzFeed

"Highly inventive. . . . A work of immense charm and originality, written in vivid, witty prose." --The New Yorker

"Luiselli's unstintingly imaginative tale perhaps works as a parable for the way works accrue value in the art world." --The Guardian

Playful, attentive and very smart without being for a minute pretentious. It's Walter Benjamin without tears--sunnier, more casual and more nimble." --The New York Times Sunday Book Review

"This giddy, witty, idiosyncratic novel . . . is a jubilant celebration of the act of storytelling." --The Wall Street Journal

"A playful, philosophical funhouse of a read that demonstrates that not only isn't experimental fiction dead, it needn't be deadly, either." --NPR

"Although buoyant, Luiselli's work never seems flippant, perhaps because of her precise prose style. . . . Linear at first glance, it soon opens out into a world of stories, like a mouth with one tooth from every artist in the world." --The Chicago Tribune

"This charmingly slippery slip of a book, packed with fantastical allusions, reminds us that the world's great stories can be ours for a very reasonable price." --The San Francisco Chronicle

"Wonderful, unusual." --Paris Review Daily

"In a delicately layered, wryly funny fashion, Luiselli is exploring the actual value of telling made-up stories." --HuffPost

About the Author

Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City in 1983 and grew up in South Africa. A novelist (Faces in the Crowd) and essayist (Sidewalks), her work has been translated into many languages and has appeared in publications including the New York Times, the New Yorker, Granta, and McSweeney's. In 2014, Faces in the Crowd was the recipient of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 award.