Mouth to Mouth: Antoine Wilson

Product Information

Such dilemmas are the engines of fiction. As for murder and all its entertainments, Wilson is understandably more ambivalent. I was thinking about how a sight that might consume our attention completely on the ground could, from another perspective, barely register as a blip on an enormous field, when I heard a name over the PA. I sat at the gate at JFK, having red-eyed my way from Los Angeles, exhausted, minding my own business, reflecting on what I’d seen the night before, shortly after takeoff, shortly before sleep, something I’d never seen before from an airplane. The central figure Jeff goes to work for LA art dealer Francis Arsenault, an enigmatic power-broker. Jeff knows nothing about art or art dealing or, frankly, anything: a recent graduate of UCLA, he falls in love w Arsenault's daughter, and everything is just fine until she learns that Daddy promised a young femme artist a show in return for a screw. Her art is bad. Daughter has an all-American hissy-fit. ~~ Tant pis!

So set aside a few hours this winter. Get a cup of your favorite beverage, settle in your favorite chair. You won’t want to set this book down. While waiting for a delayed flight to Berlin, Jeff bumped into an old acquaintance from UCLA and the two spent the downtime in the First Class Lounge—Jeff’s treat. For several hours, Jeff related the story, mentioning several times he’d never spoken of the incident to anyone until now. WHY? Now that we've finished all that, I just found myself wondering what the point was when it was all over. Not what was the point of the book, that was quite clear and as I mentioned it was effectively made. But why tell this story when it has, frankly, been told so many times already?A flight delay from JFK to Berlin was perfect for passing the time conversing with a fellow passenger. They were barely acquainted as college students at UCLA, 20 years prior. Jeff Cook, smartly dressed for success, asked our narrator to join him in the first class lounge to await the Berlin flight announcement. Jeff was a successful art dealer. The narrator would be traveling to Berlin, at his own expense, to drum up interest in his writing. all good old Jeff does is to keep going on about "Was it fate?" "He never really thanked me." and blabla. he's not even good at story telling. i wanted to be on the edge of my seat, instead i fell asleep listening to the audiobook 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 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. 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. A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.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? I was in the mood for something different but I didn't expect this short audiobook to be as good as it was! It starts slow, meanders for a while, and then it takes you to a surprise ending. I did not see that one coming! An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored. Who was Jeff Cook? He claimed that this was a first telling of his story to anyone, 20 years later after the rescue. Why now? "...he had saved a man's life-had done the ultimate good deed-shouldn't he want to remember it?" Not your average psychological thriller. This one builds slowly but all-the-while doing so without the reader having any idea whatsoever where the story is going to end up. Telling the life of Jeff, is a wild ride through the seedy & manipulation-laden world of being an art dealer.

We hadn’t been friends, exactly, barely acquaintances, but Jeff was one of those minor players from the past who claimed for himself an outsize role in my memories. He is a contributing editor of the literary journal A Public Space as well as the Los Angeles Review of Books. His fiction and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, StoryQuarterly, Quarterly West, and Best New American Voices, among other publications. Jeff strolled up, two beers in hand. He put one in front of me, announcing that he’d found a nonalcoholic brew, and that he wasn’t sure if I drank them, but he thought it might make things feel more ceremonial—that was the word he used—for us to catch up over a couple of beers, alcoholic or not, for old times’ sake. We had never drunk together that I could remember, but I let it go. We clinked bottles and sipped, our eyes turning to the plane traffic outside. It is a book that plays with the reader a little, which I always appreciate, the narration from Jeff being undercut regularly by our actual narrator, who comes to the forefront and then retreats again many times. It knows what it wants to say, it's efficient, and if it maybe hits the nail on the head a bit more than is my personal preference, it was never really going for subtlety anyway.

Table of Contents

You know, there are books that leave the reader with questions at the end. And then there are books like this one, that leave you feeling maybe the author couldn’t figure it out either! Maybe he’d left it this way hoping readers would be satisfied. But this reader was not.🙄 From where I sat near the gate, I could examine this Jeff Cook closely, in profile. I had all but determined that he wasn’t the Jeff Cook I’d known and was going to turn my attention elsewhere, when he looked in my direction. I knew those high, broad cheekbones and that penetrating gaze. Jeff reveals that after that traumatic, galvanizing morning on the beach, he was compelled to learn more about the man whose life he had saved, convinced that their fates were now entwined. But are we agents of our fate—or are we its pawns? Upon discovering that the man is renowned art dealer Francis Arsenault, Jeff begins to surreptitiously visit his Beverly Hills gallery. Although Francis does not seem to recognize him as the man who saved his life, he nevertheless casts his legendary eye on Jeff and sees something worthy. He takes the younger man under his wing, initiating him into his world, where knowledge, taste, and access are currency; a world where value is constantly shifting and calling into question what is real, and what matters. The paths of the two men come together and diverge in dizzying ways until the novel’s staggering ending. 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...