A review by ocurtsinger
I'll Sell You a Dog by Juan Pablo Villalobos

3.0

Teo is a retired taco seller living in a retirement complex in Mexico City. He struggles to get along with his cohabitants who run a stuffy book club, instead finding solace in the misfit characters he meets on the street, the bottoms of several different bottles, and the memories of his brief forays into the art world before he started selling tacos. He is a comedian, a thinker, and a trickster at heart, and he delights in playing philosophical pranks upon the people around him. As someone who isn't familiar with the lesser characters in Mexico's art and political history, some jokes perhaps didn't quite click as well as they would for Mexican readers, but Teo is still an original and amusing narrator to follow along; at some points we're left wondering if the novel itself is a trick he is casting upon us, as if his playful disdain for the reading group in his retirement home extends to readers in general.