Mouth to Mouth

This is a fascinating tale, fairly short and can be read in one sitting. The device of it being a story within a story, told to a fairly anonymous and neutral listener makes it utterly compelling. I have seen this before but can't remember which books it appears in. Other books it reminds me of are Enduring Love and The Talented Mr Ripley., in their themes of obsession and corruption. The only quibble I have is with the twist at the end - surely this would have been known to the family? This did take the edge off it for me, otherwise it was very enjoyable.

Well, this was such a captivating, intriguing read!
From the moment I started this, I was fascinated by it. Two old school aquaintances meet at an airport and one of them, Jeff, clearly has to get something of his chest. He has been harbouring a secret for years and decides to offload onto his school friend. I did find that a little unbelievable- why did he decide to tell the narrator all of a sudden when he hadn't told anyone previously? Was it because he thought he wasn't going to see him again?
Once I made my peace with that issue, it was a fantastic read. Jeff's obsession made for a gripping and memorable book, and I would definitely recommend it.

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The narrator, an unsuccessful writer, is on his way to Berlin when he coincidentally meets a former fellow student at JFK airport. Jeff, too, remembers him immediately even though they haven’t seen each other for two decades. As their flight is delayed, they decide to spend the waiting time together and update each other about what they have done in the last twenty years. Jeff’s life was marked by an incident on the beach, when he saw a man drowning. He could save him but not forget the occurrence. He starts enquiring about him and soon finds out that Francis Arsenault is a successful art dealer. Jeff becomes more and more fixated on the man, wondering if he remembers that he was his saviour. When he gets to work at Francis’ gallery, this is the beginning of a major change in his life – yet, will he ever get the chance to reveal what brought him there in the first place?

Antoine Wilson has chosen an interesting framework for his story which puts the reader in the same place as the writer who mainly just sits there and listens to Jeff’s account. You know that what he tells is highly subjective, only one side of the story is presented in a way that Jeff wants to put it, but nevertheless, quasi as a former friend, you are willing to believe him not knowing where all this is going to lead to. “Mouth to Mouth” is highly intriguing from the first page, due to a very clever foreshadowing, you are aware that there must be something behind Jeff’s need to tell his life story, but you keep wondering what that could be.

“’Who better than someone who was there at the beginning?’ – ‘You said that before. Only I’m not sure why it matters.’ ‘You knew me then. That I had a good heart.’“

Repeatedly, Jeff stresses that he has a good heart, that he only wanted the best for others, that he did do nothing wrong and just like the narrator, you wonder why he keeps on stressing that point. Saving somebody from downing is surely an admirable act, selfish and courageous. That he started following Francis then and slowing crept into his life is not that honest but he didn’t do no harm. So you keep on reading eager to figure out what will ultimately make Jeff appear in a totally different light.

“Just think, if I had somehow not saved Francis’s life, if instead he’d died on that beach, everything that came after would not have happened like it did.”

The novel raises the big question about what might have happened if just one incident of your life hadn’t happened, or had turned out differently. Many things of our everyday life do not have life changing consequences, but some do. And everybody knows this pondering about the “what if”. Connected to this is inevitably the question of necessary consequences, of a bigger plan behind it all.

In Francis’s case, he was granted more time on earth due to Jeff’s intervention, but did he use that time wisely? He is a reckless art dealer and the closer Jeff gets and the more he learns about him, the more he wonders how that man deals with the big gift he was given. At the same time, he gets insight into the shiny art’s business which is all but shiny behind the facade and which is, well, just a business where money is made.

A brilliantly plotted novel which is thought-provoking and play well with the reader’s expectations and emotions.

As this tale begins, we meet a man, a writer, who is en route to an engagement in Berlin. We learn that he’s travelling cheaply, but having already caught a redeye from the West Coast to JFK, New York he’s now learned that his onward flight has been delayed. But then he spots a man he thinks he recognises from his time at UCLA, some twenty years ago. The man, Jeff Cook, notices him too and soon they’re enjoying free beer and snacks, courtesy of Cook’s First Class privilege. At this point I was looking forward to learning more about the writer (unnamed throughout), his onward journey and his time in the German capital. But the focus of story now switched as Cook began to tell of a pivotal event earlier in his life, something he’s never talked of to another living soul.

As Cook talked the writer took on the role of confessor, his responses sympathetic and occasionally prompting. Not that Cook needed much prompting, he’s on a roll and seems determined to provide an unexpurgated version. The start point, and the key to all that follows, is his intervention one morning when spots a man in severe difficulty off Santa Monica beach. Without further thought, he launches himself into the water and swims out to the man. Having rescued him from certain drowning others arrive on the scene and eventually he’s left alone, with no knowledge of the identity of the man he saved. Initially this doesn’t bother him, he’s done a good deed and that’s all that matters. But after stewing in his own juices for a while his curiosity gets the better of him – he needs to know more.

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.

A really clever and engaging tale from an obviously talented writer. I’ll definitely be looking out more of his work.