Mouth to Mouth: ‘Gripping... Shades of Patricia Highsmith and Donna Tartt’ Vogue

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WILSON: Yeah. Well, I think to some extent, that reflects the composition of the book, but it also reflects the way that identity is slippery in life. Our identities are slippery. And, you know, Jeff is a bit of a salesman of the self. How much we should believe his story comes into question, but also how much he believes it himself is a real central question to the book. Mouth to Mouth is a novel that explores themes of money, fate and morality through the eyes of an art dealer named Jeff who confesses the real story behind his success. In a first-class lounge at JFK airport, the book's narrator listens as a former classmate he vaguely remembers shares the story of his adult life — a life that forever changed course when he saved a man from drowning. Split up into pairs and imagine you find yourself in Jeff and the narrator’s position: happening upon a person from your past. Write a scene about a pivotal moment in one character’s life in the style of Jeff’s story and the narrator’s commentary. Bonus points if you cast doubt on the storyteller in subtle ways. When everyone is finished, take turns sharing with the rest of the group. SHAPIRO: Were you interested as well in exploring the idea of paths we take, because this begins with Jeff being aimless and directionless right out of college, right after a breakup. And this event really does shape the course of his life, as we see in this airport lounge where he has nice clothes and a good job and a family and all of that as a result of this one moment.

A storytelling triumph… this novel is intentional, focused and expertly delivered. Wilson captures the reader’s attention from the beginning and holds it all the way to the end.”

Sparks fly as a people-pleasing paramedic and a hardened ER nurse clash in the final installment of the bestselling Lakeside Hospital medical romance series. What words would you use to describe Wilson’s writing style? How does his attention to detail impact your reading of the book and its ideas?

Michael Kimball first caught my attention in 1985 with Firewater Pond, a boisterously comic novel set in rural Maine and populated by an assortment of aging hippies, horny teenagers, and scheming, small town politicians. After much too long a silence, Kimball resurfaced in 1996 with Undone, a suspense novel that marked a major change of artistic direction. Now, a mere four years later, Kimball has published his third novel, Mouth to Mouth. It too is a suspense novel, and it's a beauty: a moody, brooding, Gothic account of murder, madness, and festering family secrets. Judgement is a recurring theme here; Jeff judges himself because he only rescues Francis out of duty. He considers walking away and pretending he saw nothing amiss, but he reluctantly saves him, often returning to this almost indifferent attitude to another person’s life. But as Jeff gets to know Francis, he judges him for his unkind actions, and the reader is also placed into a position of judgement as it’s obvious Francis isn’t a good person. How does it feel to discover you saved the life of a person that makes other people miserable? The narrator is clearly judging Jeff as well – as I mentioned above, Jeff clearly doesn’t care about the narrator or his thoughts, he just wants to tell this story, even other people in the airport lounge remark on how annoying Jeff must be as he’s flapping his gums with no end in sight. These subtle observations about each character (everyone but the narrator) brilliantly uncovers the life of the internal; all the critical elements of this story happen beneath the surface.This was my first book by this Author and based on what I read I was expecting a lot more than a shallow u-haul thrope. Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? In the present day, our narrator, an American author of middling to low notability finds his flight delayed one morning on a layover at JFK. Waiting at the gate, he recognizes one of his co-travellers as a classmate from college. The classmate is none other than Jeff Cook, who only wore “ripped-up jeans and weathered T-shirts” when the two were students together at UCLA, but who is now a “handsome man in his forties… dressed in a sharp blue suit” and “glasses with transparent Lucite frames.” Jeff recognizes the narrator as well, and invites him to a first-class airport lounge to recount to him his transformation from the t-shirt-and-faded-jeans Jeff to the elegantly-suited businessman standing before him, beginning with his rescue of the drowning man. This is the fifth and final instalment of the Lakeside Hospital medical romance series and I think it is a great way to close this series. Cara Malone did it again and gave us a beautiful, heart-warming story. This book can be read as a standalone. I saw a guy who was walking — he was air-drumming and paying no attention to anything with his headphones on. And I realized he was about to step in front of the train that was coming. And so I got his attention and stopped him from doing it. How do you repay someone for saving your life? And what can someone extract from you, once they have saved your life?

In my wife’s childhood home,” he says, “there are books about murder everywhere, and that has to do with character, who people are when faced with the highest stakes imaginable. But having experienced my brother’s murder? I still don’t love true crime.” Incredibly taut, with funny and brilliantly described scenes of the Los Angeles art world.”— Keziah Weir, Vanity Fair Coming out of surgery,” he said, “waking up in the recovery room, foggy as hell, I didn’t feel the sense of relief I had expected to feel—that only came later when I saw my family again. I felt like I’d lost a chunk of time. Like sleep, but when you sleep you wake up where you went down. I felt that things had happened to me without my knowledge, which they had, of course, and I was left with the uncanny sense that I wasn’t the same person who had gone under. Time had passed, a part of my body was no longer in me, I had had a square shaved from my leg for some kind of circuit-completing electrode, but I was still I, obviously. Now, this may have been a side effect of the drugs, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d only just arrived in the world, as a replacement for the old me. It wore off, as I said, but it wasn’t a pleasant state.” 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!

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