Gustavo Sánchez Sánchez

Gustavo Sánchez Sánchez, often referred to by the nickname “Highway,” is the protagonist of the novel. Most of the novel is written in the first person from Gustavo’s point of view. Gustavo was born in Mexico and lives there for his entire life. He is born to working-class parents and works as a security guard at a juice factory from age 21 to 40. At about the age of 40, he becomes a professional auctioneer after taking a training course. Much of the novel concerns Gustavo’s work as an auctioneer and the connections he draws between the theory of auctioneering and theories of life as he experiences it.

Gustavo is the narrator of most of the novel, and the novel eventually reveals that Gustavo is a rather unreliable narrator. Gustavo states that one of the things he learns from his auctioneer training is...