The Story of My Teeth

By: Valeria Luiselli

Narrated by: Armando Duran, Thom Rivera

The story of "Highway" Sanchez - bon vivant, world traveler, auctioneer - and his teeth is like Johnny Cash meets Robert Walser in Mexico.

"I was born in Pachuca, the Beautiful Windy City, with four premature teeth and my body completely covered in a very fine coat of fuzz. But I'm grateful for that inauspicious start because ugliness, as my other uncle, Euripides Lopez Sanchez, was given to saying, is character forming." Gustavo "Highway" Sanchez is a late-in-life world traveler, 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, The Story of My Teeth is an elegant, witty, exhilarating romp through the industrial suburbs of Mexico City and Luiselli's own literary influences.

©2015 Valeria Luiselli (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Character of Deceit

Winner of the Los Angeles Times 2016 novel of the year. It’s the story of Gustavo Sanchez Sanchez who becomes an auctioneer of tall tales. The book takes you on a journey through his many lies and his many loves. It’s a very well-written book that works as a great example of the unreliable narrator. The book stands out for me as a poetic comedy. Gustava is a interesting character that seems to go nowhere which is fine because the book is more about character than plot. The art is in the details and in Luiselle’s sense of history. Both narrators are wonderful and helped me get lost into this world. Overall if you're looking for a complex human study and are not concerned with plot, you'll be rewarded with this charming story.

Fun and clever

Fun book by Luiselli and well read by Duran and Rivera. Fun history behind the book too.

beautiful work

I found this book to be very creative beautifully written absolutely loved it going to check out authors other books

Lot to think about

The afterword complicates the interpretation of the book quite a bit. The author’s ambitions here are much larger than immediately obvious from just the text.

The story itself is beautifully told. I have read a lot of the authors considered “the greats,” and Highway might the most fully realized, tangible, and distinct character and I have ever encountered.

In terms of what the author was commenting on about art, the literary world, class and the nature of expression - I will have to spend some time fully thinking that through.

Very impressive.

The backstory is its redeeming value

This story was too weird for me. What gave it some redeeming value was learning, at the end, that the author had modeled it on the Cuban lectores who read to factory workers in Cuba dating back to the mid 1800s. The story was read to employees of the Jumex factory in Mexico and they gave feedback to the author which helped shape her novel. Jumex supported the endeavor which was also admirable.