Valeria Luiselli: La historia de mis dientes (The Story of My Teeth)

The latest addition to my website is Valeria Luiselli‘s La historia de mis dientes (The Story of My Teeth). This is a superb post-modern novel about, well, teeth (amongst other things). Gustavo Sánchez Sánchez was born with four premature teeth. When his adult teeth grew, they were all pointing in different directions. After an uneventful early life, with most of it spent as a security guard, he became an apparently successful auctioneer and was able to buy Marilyn Monroe’s teeth, which he had transplanted into his own mouth. His success as an auctioneer is because he uses the allegoric approach, selling not just the dubious items he sells (including Plato’s and Saint Augustine’s teeth) but also the stories he tells in his selling. However, it seems that the story he is telling us of himself may be as fanciful as the stories he tells his clients. He ends up chased by giant clowns, bought and imprisoned by his son (whom he has not seen since he was very young) and toothless. It is all hilarious fun, highly improbable and very post-modern. it will certainly have you thinking about your teeth.

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