Teeth & Spies

Teeth are, for those of us who keep them until we die, our final message across the centuries to posterity—our smile or grimace of rage to the person rummaging in the dust, who finds the remains of our fleeting presence on earth. This is the tragicomic account of one man’s life through the fate of his teeth, from the loss of his first milk tooth swallowed by his father in a prison camp to the eventual fixture of a set of dentures. In 32 chapters—each devoted to a particular tooth—the unnamed narrator, an Italian Jew, charts 50 years of Eastern European history. Swept up in its agitated course, he finds himself immersed in secret plots, covert missions, and a ceaseless reflection on the meaning of life.