The Story of My Teeth

Reviews

“The Story of My Teeth explores the meaning of home through the antics of an auctioneer, told in his own hyperbolic fashion.”

“Luiselli is as much a cartographer as a writer, interested in finding areas still unmapped…She combines fictional narrative with historical and intellectual points of reference, and the result is writing without preconceptions, as airy and open as a soccer field.”

“Quirky doesn’t begin to capture the wacky inventiveness of Valeria Luiselli’s second novel. The Story of My Teeth is a playful, philosophical funhouse of a read that demonstrates that not only isn’t experimental fiction dead, it needn’t be deadly, either. Luiselli’s elastic mind comfortably stretches to wrap itself around molars, Montaigne, fortune cookies and various theories of meaning.”

“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.”

“Quirky and charming, The Story of My Teeth is a delightful meditation on art, value, and truth.”

“The Story of My Teeth has a Joycean playfulness with words, events, structure, literary theory, languages, and human nature.”

“Surprising and charming…It’s difficult not to follow wherever it takes you.”

“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.’”

“A fiercely intelligent, inventive, and hilarious exploration of worth, value, and creation in the worlds of art and literature.”

“The novel’s experimental structure is full of literary allusions and bon mots from across the ages. Readers hungry for more from Luiselli will be happy with a clever variation on her style.”

“A beautiful and quick moving story on the scenic route…Luiselli makes some bold explorations into the art of value and storytelling, and it’s something that shouldn’t go quietly into the night. We need to reflect, we need to explore. Many books have come and gone that have tried to make sense of the power of fiction, and A Story of My Teeth may be the closest we’ll get…It’s a gallery of thought. It’s meant to be appreciated part for part. This is writing illuminated.”

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