When he finds himself stuck at an airport, our narrator sees someone he recognises. Discovering that this person is Jeff - someone he went to college with - the narrator is invited to join Jeff in the first class lounge. So begins the telling of a story that cleverly strings us along until the final page. Jeff saved a man from drowning. In a bid to find out more about the man he saved Jeff tracks him down and becomes involved in his life, without ever revealing their connection.

This book really draws you in and the nature of the story keeps you wondering if Jeff will ever be uncovered as the rescuer. The art world setting adds another layer of interest and I found the descriptions of what can go on behind the scenes in this particular section of society fascinating.

There’s an air of ambiguity to the story and it’s one that keeps you guessing to the end. Will Jeff be revealed? Is Jeff to be believed? Is his story even true? An enjoyable book that will keep you guessing.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I struggled to maintain interest in the story or grow any empathy with the characters. Although the author / narrator raises some very interesting philosophical questions, the over-indulgent writing robs them of any element of liveliness or depth. Ultimately, it became a DNF. Disappointing,
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

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.

A strange story which doesn't seem to get anywhere for ages and leaves you with some questions. It does keep you in the story for the most part

I tired my hardest to enjoy this book but I really struggled to get into the plot and engage with the characters. It was so promising - maybe I need to return to this sometime next year and give it another go as something was odd this time.

I found Mouth To Mouth rather compelling reading, but I’m not quite sure what it added up to in the end.

The book is narrated by a not-very-successful author who coincidentally meets Jeff, an old acquaintance from college while waiting for a delayed flight. Jeff tells the narrator the story of how he once saved a man from drowning and how he subsequently tried to find out about the man he had saved. This leads him into both the man’s art-dealing business and then his personal life, making him think about the consequences of having saved a life when that life may not be a very commendable one.

It’s a very well written and involving tale which is also lent a certain Hitchcockian creepiness by the chance encounter and the other-worldly airport lounge setting. There is some interesting discussion of Jeff’s internal response to his altruistic act and whether he needs or deserves reward or recognition, plus a well-drawn picture of the art world and its wealthy and often amoral milieu, including some neatly-turned descriptions. For example, at the opening of a show “...a few men and women in their forties or early fifties, looking as though they had through wealth escaped into a world without consequences. Funky eyeglasses, a striped jacket, and one woman’s cape made it clear to anyone who saw them that they were nonconformists, people of taste, art-world cognoscenti.”

The quality of the writing and storytelling, plus the book’s commendable brevity made this a rather gripping read for me, but in the end I wasn’t sure whether it had said anything really new. Certainly the claim by one distinguished reviewer that it “interrogates the very nature of identity, destiny and storytelling” seems to me very overblown, rather akin to some of the pretentious vacuity purveyed in the art world. Mouth To Mouth is good, it makes some interesting observations and it’s certainly worth reading, but I’m not sure it’s quite as brilliant or profound as it’s made out to be. I can still recommend it, though.

(My thanks to Atlantic Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)

I only managed to get about half way through this book, despite it being short. Neither the characters nor the story interested me at all, and the writing style I found somewhat stilted.

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.