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

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Rarely does an audio book keep me up, I usually doze off spending my morning hours trying to figure out where in the book to begin again.

Ripley novel, as the tale-teller, a man once admired by our protagonist when they were both in collage, plays with the other's attraction as he unspools his tale, in which his old admirer is a alternately charmed and alarmed by a fantastic tale of love, fate and a meteoric rise--set in the world contemporary art.And yet, the final sentence brings the conclusion into question: Did Cook leave the narrator with a lie?

Turning up at the airport for his flight, the narrator of this story bumps into his old f Parts of it were interesting and hearing about how Jeff had saved the drowning man was quite an engaging bit of writing, but beyond that I got a little lost.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.

His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Story Quarterly, and Best New American Voices, among other publications, and he is a contributing editor of the literary magazine A Public Space as well as the Los Angeles Review of Books. Jeff had to know more about the man he saved and one day, finds himself visiting the man’s art gallery.Jeff found seats by the window, a low table between them, and gestured for me to sit, as if he were my host. The central figure Jeff goes to work for LA art dealer Francis Arsenault, an enigmatic power-broker. Wilson’s vivid description, stunning characterization, and insightful exploration of morality culminate in an unforgettable book. The author here does jab LA/Hollywood art collectors with a stinging, accurate line: "They werent the type to drop money on unknown and emerging artists. He manages with much personal effort of CPR to bring the man back to life before Medics arrive and carry him off.

Cook’s Tom Ripley-like story — and the wary narrator’s retelling of it — is loaded with fateful encounters, hidden agendas, shrouded identities, adulterous betrayals and brushes with death. The man, Jeff Cook, notices him too and soon they’re enjoying free beer and snacks, courtesy of Cook’s First Class privilege. 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.Despite the length, the book contains a compelling plot, an intriguing mystery and interesting characters. The plot picks up pace as Jeff insinuates himself into Francis’s life, and the more dramatic Francis’s life reveals itself to be, the faster everything moves, us hearing less and less from the narrator, everything eventually overtaken by Jeff’s story.