Stuck at an airport the narrator, a struggling author, meets an old classmate, Jeff. Jeff invites him to the First Class lounge and as they are waiting, Jeff tells him the story of his life. Or, rather, one story of his life and one which he says he has told no one before. Alone on a beach one morning Jeff rescues a drowning man but does not seem to be able to let go of what happened, seeing it as a pivotal point in his life and seemingly needing some kind of closure for the man himself. The rescued man turns out to be a wealthy and renowned art dealer, Francis Arsenault, and one day Jeff musters up the courage to enter his gallery. But as Jeff finds out more about the man who unknowingly owes his life to him, Jeff begins to wonder whether he should have saved him after all.
Mouth to Mouth is an engrossing read with a compelling, sinister undercurrent and a constantly building tension. In some ways the reader, too, is trapped listening to this morally ambiguous, slightly disturbing tale. ‘Who is he?’ is first asked in relation to the drowning man, but we wonder, also, about Jeff. What does the narrator really know about him and what is the truth in the story he is telling?
This was an unsettling, well written and well constructed thriller about moral boundaries, the stories we tell about ourselves and how chance encounters can change our lives. For me it fell a little flat, though.
Mouth to Mouth is an engrossing read with a compelling, sinister undercurrent and a constantly building tension. In some ways the reader, too, is trapped listening to this morally ambiguous, slightly disturbing tale. ‘Who is he?’ is first asked in relation to the drowning man, but we wonder, also, about Jeff. What does the narrator really know about him and what is the truth in the story he is telling?
This was an unsettling, well written and well constructed thriller about moral boundaries, the stories we tell about ourselves and how chance encounters can change our lives. For me it fell a little flat, though.