Mouth to Mouth: Antoine Wilson

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Once in the lounge, Jeff begins to share his story about how his life dramatically changes after rescuing a drowning man. He goes into great detail about the man he saves being a famous art dealer who eventually takes Jeff under his wing.

A] taut, compulsive chamber piece of a novel, which you’ll struggle not to rip through in one sitting… Mouth to Mouth is an elegantly told and supremely gripping tale of serendipity and deception—and delivers a brilliant ending that will leave you guessing about everything that came before.” — Vogue In a first-class lounge at JFK airport, our narrator listens as Jeff Cook, a former classmate he only vaguely remembers, shares the uncanny story of his adult life—a life that changed course years before, the moment he resuscitated a drowning man. He smiled and took me in for a moment. “Hey, why don’t you join me in the first-class lounge? I’ve got an extra pass.”From where I sat near the gate, I could examine this Jeff Cook closely, in profile. I had all but determined that he wasn’t the Jeff Cook I’d known and was going to turn my attention elsewhere, when he looked in my direction. I knew those high, broad cheekbones and that penetrating gaze. You know, there are books that leave the reader with questions at the end. And then there are books like this one, that leave you feeling maybe the author couldn’t figure it out either! Maybe he’d left it this way hoping readers would be satisfied. But this reader was not.🙄 Waiting for a flight at JFK airport lounge, two former classmates reunite, and one of them, Jeff Cook goes into a storytelling mode and shares a story that he has never told before. Its a story that changed the course of two lives, his and the man he saved from drowning. Two paintings command longer descriptions in Mouth to Mouth: the one that hangs in Francis’s office, and the large diptych that catches Jeff’s eye in Sotheby’s (p. 97 and p. 130). Perform a close reading of the passages in the context of both characters. Is there a deeper meaning to be gleaned? To add fun and interest to the story, Wilson writes the art dealer as an unethical and brutal man. Jeff frequently questions if he was right in saving this unkind man. Jeff is attempting to paint himself as a great person for saving a man’s life, but the narrator asks to what end did he want to be a part of the dealer’s life? Jeff slowly tells his story of his rise to greatness and his relationship with the dealer. The reader is left to judge if Jeff was an opportunistic jerk exploiting the dealer, who is a jerk himself.

The flight delay becomes protracted (they’re both booked on the same flight, albeit at different ends of the aeroplane) and as the two men talk on more of Cook’s story is revealed. What follows is a tale of scheming, betrayal and fateful events. The interaction between the pair is really well handled, in fact the writing is first rate throughout. He’s a clever guy, the author, and I was constantly looking up words I didn’t recognise and references I didn’t understand the meaning of. The pacing is excellent too and as I got close to the end I was waiting for the final punch – it came late and it was pretty good, that’s all I’ll say. The chapters are short and fly by. Expert foreshadowing lets you know that the end is not likely to have been a good one for either the saved man or the savior. Our unnamed narrator runs into Jeff Cook at JFK Airport taking the same flight to Berlin. It's obvious, by his attire, that Jeff is doing well for himself and upon hearing their flight is delayed, he extends an offer to wait in the comfort of the first-class lounge. I presumed that he was one of those people who hated being alone. Perhaps if I’d been paying closer attention, or if I’d known what was to come, I’d have detected a glimmer of desperation in his eyes. I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t there, not yet.Our narrator begins to really wonder about Jeff. Why is he telling someone he barely knows, an acquaintance from college 20 years ago, this personal story he's never told anyone else? Or so he says...

It was he. But Jeff had had famously long, dark flowing hair, not this cropped salt-and-pepper business. Plus he’d put on weight, become more solid in the way so many of us did after college, continuing to grow into manhood long after we thought we’d arrived. The novel opens, in a neat framing device, with an airport encounter between an unnamed narrator and an estranged friend, Jeff Cook, from the narrator’s college days at UCLA. Twenty years after graduation, the two men couldn’t be more different. The narrator is flying economy and accepts the invitation to join his old acquaintance in a first-class lounge, where Jeff begins to spin a circuitous tale about the time he saved a man’s life on a Santa Monica beach using mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Revived, the man doesn’t thank him, and Jeff wants to understand why. Incredibly taut, with funny and brilliantly described scenes of the Los Angeles art world... [ Mouth to Mouth is] powered by a kind of ominous propulsive forward momentum right up until the very end, which is unexpected and inevitable, as all the best endings are.” — Vanity Fair Dealers do fool around w artists...yes, but only w the "good" ones; sometimes, so do art critics. (The NYT--for years--had a critic who "made" a young woman a Star.) ~ However, I've never ever been to an art opening that played canned music, which is done at the Arsenault Gallery in LA. Jeff, starting at the gallery on the lowest level, would be getting minimum pay. This doesnt bother him as he's house-sitting for Brad Pitt. His job is, frankly, the most boring in the world. At another opening he meets the great minimalist Agnes Martin. He doesnt "get" her work. But Arsenault believes Jeff has "an eye."

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An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored. Jeff reveals how preformed CPR and ultimately saved the life of a drowning man. After the rescue, Jeff became preoccupied with finding out more about the man he revived. He discovers the man he saved was prominent art dealer Francis Arsenault. Jeff’s obsession leads him to secure employment at Francis’s art gallery. Put together a list of other novels that explore art, identity, corruption, and the tangled webs we weave, and discuss how these selections connect to Mouth to Mouth. How does form affect your reading? What did you appreciate about Wilson’s approach?

Mouth to Mouth is the story told to a writer whose plane is delayed. He notices a familiar face, a man from college days. Speaking the man’s name, he is surprised to be happily embraced as an old friend, as someone who knew him ‘then.’ The man takes him into the First Class Lounge and over drinks spins a wondrous tale of loss, unthinking heroism, and unsought riches. A tale of obsession and guilt. Jeff Cook says he has never told his story before. Our narrator is uncertain why he has been chosen to hear Cook’s story, especially since Cook insists it is because he was ‘there at the beginning’ although they were not imitate friends. Our confidence man noticed Cook on campus, and there were in a college art class. But never friends. I was thinking about how a sight that might consume our attention completely on the ground could, from another perspective, barely register as a blip on an enormous field, when I heard a name over the PA. This is the story of two old acquaintances meeting for a flight at JFK airport lounge. Jeff Cook will tell a story that happened to him and changed his life. One day on the beach he rescued a man from drowning. He performed the CPR on that drowned man (that’s the reason this novel is titled Mouth to Mouth). But later he gets obsessed with that man and has to know whether he rescued a good man or made the world a big disservice by letting a monster stay alive.

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A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy. A story told within a story and one that at first glance may not seem all that interesting. It's an ARC I've had for months that I continued to pass over in my search of the next great book. Realizing that the publishing date was coming up soon I figured I could slip in one last novel into my 2021 reading journey and so chose Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson. What a surprise this was. I was absolutely captivated by this slow simmering story. Antoine Wilson writes with such eloquence it's to be admired. I should also mention that this book utilizes one of my favorite plot devices: Cliffhanging chapters, done perfectly! I would no sooner finish a chapter when that "just one more" mantra would start blaring through my brain. And that ending... Chefs kiss! 👌 Highly recommend! 4 stars! Perhaps it will be more engaging to those readers who enjoy reading about art curators and art galleries. I like a pretty picture as much as the next person, but the business side of this world does not really interest me. I kept reading and reading to get to the promised twist that everyone has been raving about, but, honestly, the biggest surprise for me is that the ending surprised anyone. It seemed like the most obvious conclusion. While waiting for a delayed flight to Berlin, Jeff bumped into an old acquaintance from UCLA and the two spent the downtime in the First Class Lounge—Jeff’s treat. For several hours, Jeff related the story, mentioning several times he’d never spoken of the incident to anyone until now. WHY? I’d said it before and meant it every time, but people always took it as an expression of false modesty.