What do you think?
Rate this book
Teeth: An Oral History
Teeth, like a weeping father at a wedding, give you away. Like St Peter, they will betray you three breakfast, lunch and dinner. Teeth are a memento mori, a sudden glimpse of the naked skull beneath the skin.
John Patrick Higgins has had bad teeth for as long as he can remember and you might expect him, being English, not to notice. But he has noticed, and he’s doing something about it.
This book recounts his journey from a mouthful of moist gravel to a pristine, pacific smile, with the Pole-star wattage of a Hollywood A-lister.
But first comes the horror of “stabilisation”. The trenches dug into his gums. The water-boarding horror of the dentist’s chair. The deforestation of his bank account.
Will he survive the ordeal? And if he does—blinking into that bright new day—will there be anything to smile about?
An Oral History is a bitingly funny story, illustrated by the author, and featuring a glossary of useful terms, as most of his references pre-date the discovery of fluoride.
John Patrick Higgins has had bad teeth for as long as he can remember and you might expect him, being English, not to notice. But he has noticed, and he’s doing something about it.
This book recounts his journey from a mouthful of moist gravel to a pristine, pacific smile, with the Pole-star wattage of a Hollywood A-lister.
But first comes the horror of “stabilisation”. The trenches dug into his gums. The water-boarding horror of the dentist’s chair. The deforestation of his bank account.
Will he survive the ordeal? And if he does—blinking into that bright new day—will there be anything to smile about?
An Oral History is a bitingly funny story, illustrated by the author, and featuring a glossary of useful terms, as most of his references pre-date the discovery of fluoride.
134 pages, Paperback
Published April 15, 2024
1 person is currently reading
20 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 6, 2024
Teeth; aren’t they strange? They are these odd shapes made out of enamel and dentin that help us chew food and yet they provide comedic value. Look at the cartoons. Whenever one is bashed in the face and all the teeth fall out, it is funny, they also express the type of animated character: if there are buck teeth it denotes lesser intelligence, braces are geeky and gold ones generally means a villain.
This comedic aspect of teeth is featured in John Patrick Higgin’s memoir. The books starts off with John conscious of the fact his teeth are not in the best condition and thus begins many detailed sojourns to the dentist in order to take care of his mouth.
We all know that comedy and pain are rooted (see what I did there) together and John Patrick Higgins, tales of extractions, operations, the formation of dentures and the eventual wearing of dentures to his teeth being capped must sound agonising. However, John has such a turn of phrase with puns and sharp one liners one can’t help giggling. As a person who has over forty fillings and a false tooth I could relate to the multiple dentist visits, pain involved (obviously not as bad as Author’s).
In between there’s some trivia about famous people and their teeth, most famously, the late Martin Amis spending the advance he received on The Information on restructuring all his pearly whites.
By the end the author does get his wish and has his teeth capped and things look better, does this mean that having good teeth will equal a brighter future? ummm maybe but don’t forget it all comes at a hefty price and, with teeth, work is continuous.
If you are equally fascinated by teeth or have been stigmatised for having less than normal ones, then Teeth is a fun read, Don’t forget John Patrick Higgins’ pain will be your pleasure.
This comedic aspect of teeth is featured in John Patrick Higgin’s memoir. The books starts off with John conscious of the fact his teeth are not in the best condition and thus begins many detailed sojourns to the dentist in order to take care of his mouth.
We all know that comedy and pain are rooted (see what I did there) together and John Patrick Higgins, tales of extractions, operations, the formation of dentures and the eventual wearing of dentures to his teeth being capped must sound agonising. However, John has such a turn of phrase with puns and sharp one liners one can’t help giggling. As a person who has over forty fillings and a false tooth I could relate to the multiple dentist visits, pain involved (obviously not as bad as Author’s).
In between there’s some trivia about famous people and their teeth, most famously, the late Martin Amis spending the advance he received on The Information on restructuring all his pearly whites.
By the end the author does get his wish and has his teeth capped and things look better, does this mean that having good teeth will equal a brighter future? ummm maybe but don’t forget it all comes at a hefty price and, with teeth, work is continuous.
If you are equally fascinated by teeth or have been stigmatised for having less than normal ones, then Teeth is a fun read, Don’t forget John Patrick Higgins’ pain will be your pleasure.
May 11, 2024
Teeth is a book that guarantees to make you brush your teeth more, to floss for at least a week and to avoid the tooth butcher…aka dentist…at all costs. Our author has spent his life being a teeth grinder, (obvs his own teeth, this ain’t that type of book) and they are in a bad way, he gives the reader some wonderful descriptive terms to showcase just how bad they are and even though he is suffering with pain and self-confidence, you can’t help but laugh out loud. Seeing as he is one of those wealthy Hollywood types he is going to get them fixed and we are lucky enough to be along for the journey.
The book starts off with a little history lesson, filled with facts over who has the worst teeth, Brits or Americans (the results will shock you), an in-depth discussion on how vampire teeth work and a shared opinion on who has the brightest teeth in the movie industry. All of this was entertaining and it was at here that I found I may have been laughing out loud a bit too much, I got some strange looks from the neighbours…stranger than usual that is.
Then we start on this journey to recover his smile, Higgins shares his fears, over the expected pain and cost and whether this is the right thing for him, he was very honest with the reader even though he was constantly using humour as a self defence mechanism. The whole process was interesting, explanations of the work being carried out were easy to follow and as the “butcher” was ripping out teeth left, right and centre Higgins shares what was going on in his head.
Whilst Higgins was suffering before and during all this work on his teeth I managed to get a large amount of entertainment from this book, there is a lot to make you cringe and there is a lot to make you laugh. I hope that now he has his smile back, the jokes of putting him self down all the time has lessened, I’m also looking forward to a sequel…butt implants maybe? The only weakness on this book is the title, I do wish Higgins had gone with his idea of “Does Dracula Floss?”
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2024...
The book starts off with a little history lesson, filled with facts over who has the worst teeth, Brits or Americans (the results will shock you), an in-depth discussion on how vampire teeth work and a shared opinion on who has the brightest teeth in the movie industry. All of this was entertaining and it was at here that I found I may have been laughing out loud a bit too much, I got some strange looks from the neighbours…stranger than usual that is.
Then we start on this journey to recover his smile, Higgins shares his fears, over the expected pain and cost and whether this is the right thing for him, he was very honest with the reader even though he was constantly using humour as a self defence mechanism. The whole process was interesting, explanations of the work being carried out were easy to follow and as the “butcher” was ripping out teeth left, right and centre Higgins shares what was going on in his head.
Whilst Higgins was suffering before and during all this work on his teeth I managed to get a large amount of entertainment from this book, there is a lot to make you cringe and there is a lot to make you laugh. I hope that now he has his smile back, the jokes of putting him self down all the time has lessened, I’m also looking forward to a sequel…butt implants maybe? The only weakness on this book is the title, I do wish Higgins had gone with his idea of “Does Dracula Floss?”
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2024...
August 26, 2024
A short but entertaining book about Higgins' teeth. It's not just about his teeth, of course; it's about aging, mortality, vanity and so on.
JPH is witty, with an accomplished ability to turn a phrase, and this book is often very amusing. And grim - dentistry is not fun, at least for the person undergoing treatment. His ambition - to be able to smile in public without fretting about it - doesn't seem unreasonable. The project is quite the undertaking - both financially and physically - and there's plenty of entertainingly gory detail.
PS He did the illustrations as well.
JPH is witty, with an accomplished ability to turn a phrase, and this book is often very amusing. And grim - dentistry is not fun, at least for the person undergoing treatment. His ambition - to be able to smile in public without fretting about it - doesn't seem unreasonable. The project is quite the undertaking - both financially and physically - and there's plenty of entertainingly gory detail.
PS He did the illustrations as well.
July 17, 2024
I thoroughly enjoyed John Patrick Higgins’ Teeth. Powerfully succinct with his turns of phrase, Higgins is funny-as-all-get-out when describing the horrors of everyday life. In this case, paying thousands of pounds to undergo multiple long painful oral surgeries. He deals with celebrity teeth, expecting sympathy from friends and getting ‘advice’ (or nothing at all), music (cool to see mention of The Cleaners From Venus in there), and a whole lot of little things kicking off major mishaps. It might be schadenfreude, though the descriptions of distress and disgust induce much wincing in the reader, and I sure hope my own receding gumlines never give way to require such brutality, especially to my wallet - but this short book, 121 pages, is a delight. I’m jealous of the phrase, written in relation to America, - “manifest dentistry”. And “But what the hell? It’s only vast amounts of my money I’d otherwise waste on memories and experiences” had me laughing out loud. Complete with very amusing glossary too.
January 2, 2025
short but good read, witty and kept me engaged and giggling. feels like you're talking to an old friend while reading. definitely had me reflecting on my own relationship with my teeth, and reminded me to book an appointment with my dentist.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews