Mouth to Mouth: Antoine Wilson

Product Information

Compare and contrast airport-lounge Jeff with younger Jeff. What adjectives would you use to describe him? Can you pinpoint moments when the younger Jeff starts to resemble present-day Jeff? Even if Jeff was obscuring the ways in which he and Francis are similar, can you identify traits the two men might share? Consider if, instead of the narrator mediating Jeff’s story, Wilson wrote Mouth to Mouth only from Jeff’s perspective. Does the inclusion of a narrator make it easier or more difficult to form your own opinions? Do you find him trustworthy? literally nothing happened in this. the narrator meets his old classmate Jeff who tells him the story about how he saved another man's life, subsequently becoming obsessed with him and coincidentally✨ inserting himself into his life Arsenault’s life becomes complicated, threatening to divide his family, and he presses Cook for loyalty. It becomes a deadly game. She had been "...the first thing he thought of upon waking and the last he thought of before sleep descended". They had broken up. The beach parking lot was empty before sunrise. "The immensity of the ocean...[he stepped] barefoot on the cold sand, feeling a sense of liberation at his own insignificance." "Out of the corner of his eye-a dark form on the surface of the water-a swimmer making for shore...something was wrong...He knew with certainty that the crisis at hand was his alone to handle...one's interceding or not could equally represent fate."

I didn’t mention that I was traveling on my own dime, hoping to capitalize on a German magazine’s labeling me a “cult author.” Or that I was also taking a much-needed break from family obligations, carving out a week from carpools and grocery shopping to live the life readers picture writers live full-time.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? 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 This seems such a simple tale when you begin it but it isn’t. This is one to continue to think about and it kind of gets under your skin.

Why yes, I did just include a masturbatory gif on a former President’s book choice. Keepin’ it classy!) 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.

Table of Contents

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... 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. But at midnight I had to reluctantly turn this audio off and save the end for my morning walk. I had managed to listen to the first three hours and knew it was only becoming more and more difficult to hit the stop key. The story is so full of holes and implausibilities that I’m surprised I read to the end. It was very well written, and I did enjoy it at times. I suppose I thought there might be some enlightenment at the end. But there wasn’t.

The gate agent bent behind the counter to retrieve something from the printer. She handed Jeff his identification and boarding pass. He thanked her and turned to go. When he came past me, I said his name. The unnamed narrator of this story runs into Jeff Cook, an old classmate whom he hasn't seen in a long time, at the airport. Both are flying to Berlin and when their flight is delayed they sit in the first-class lounge and get caught up. Mouth to Mouth opens with the narrator reflecting on his recent red-eye. Soon after that, he and Jeff Cook reunite, and the latter shares a story of a woman who only flies unconscious, as well as his feelings about going under general anesthesia for a surgery. How do the themes of these narratives—and the rest of the lead-up to Jeff’s saga, including the narrator’s memories and observations—echo throughout the novel? I’m going to put it out there immediately that many people will not like this book. The premise here is our narrator runs into an old college acquaintance . . . Such dilemmas are the engines of fiction. As for murder and all its entertainments, Wilson is understandably more ambivalent.

Need Help?

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. Mouth to Mouth" by Antoine Wilson is a fascinating literary novel. It explores the connection between rescuer and survivor and exposes buried secrets. There were many unanswered questions. Were Jeff and Francis good people? Were they users? Was the narrator truly the first person to hear the story? Were Jeff's recollections embellished based upon an audience? Was our narrator reliable? This thought provoking read is one I highly recommend. 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. 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. Jeff’s story seems to have many endings: when he leaves Francis on the mountain, the immediate aftermath of the man’s death and its consequences in Jeff’s life, and the novel’s final line. Knowing all this information, what do you think really happened? What does it mean for your reading experience that the reveal is left ambiguous?