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

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He’s traveling alone, hasn’t touched alcohol in eight years and is “taking a much-needed break from family obligations. Imagine bumping into an old college friend and sparking up a conversation about what's happened since you last saw each other. Kevin Elyot's play Mouth to Mouth pins down the pretension and self-centredness of his characters with unerring and hilarious accuracy. Insisting that his former classmate’s “appearing out of nowhere must have sparked some old circuitry” in his brain, Cook recounts how, in his early 20s, he brought a drowned man back to life on Santa Monica beach.

Every sighting of this mystery man yielded a frisson, as if he were my guardian angel keeping tabs on me, followed by a pang of anxiety at the thought that I might never see him again. His obsession leads him to a receptionist job at Francis’s gallery, setting off a series of favors, chance encounters, and deceptions that leave the narrator—and the reader—second-guessing all that came before. Sly, suspenseful, and “gloriously addicting” ( BuzzFeed), Mouth to Mouth masterfully blurs the line between opportunity and exploitation, self-respect and self-delusion, fact and fiction—exposing the myriad ways we deceive each other, and ourselves.

These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. The book is in essence about consequences as Jeff finds himself carried along by the train of events, events in a way he enabled by saving Francis’s life. Arsenault becomes the poster child for what not to do with a second chance, quickly becoming the novel’s antagonist. The story the man is telling took place at some point in the past — Wilson suggests 2010 — and holds within it yet another incident that occurred about 20 years earlier.

At least this is the story as he tells it, as he begins to first stalk the man, then takes a job working for him, finds out more about his business dealings and begins to question all he finds out. With puzzling urgency, Jeff divulges the strange story of how he once rescued Francis, a wealthy art dealer.He was winner of the San Fernando Valley Award for Fiction, and has been a finalist for The National Magazine Award, the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award, and the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award. As Francis takes Jeff under his wing, readers will be kept in suspense until the final pages about whether Jeff will ultimately embrace or reject his role as Francis’ savior. 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.

As he slowly gets more and more involved in this man's life his judgments and motivations become more and more murky. Seated by the window drinking the bar’s complimentary beers, Jeff begins to recount a dramatic turning point in his life. Cook meets a woman at an art reception and she becomes his lover before she reveals that she is the boss’s daughter. What a delightfully clever story Mouth to Mouth is — The unnamed narrator bumps into his former college acquaintance, Jeff, at the airport.

Judgement is a recurring theme here; Jeff judges himself because he only rescues Francis out of duty. We checked into the lounge at a marble counter, where an officious young man took my pass and waved us in, letting us know that they would be announcing when it was time for us to head down to the gate.