The unnamed narrator of Antoine Wilson’s “Mouth to Mouth” doesn’t spend much time talking about himself. In the rush of the novel’s opening pages, he lets on that he is a middle-aged father of two, an alumnus of UCLA, a little-known author with possible cult status in Germany and stuck in the purgatory of JFK airport awaiting a delayed flight. What else? He’s traveling alone, hasn’t touched alcohol in eight years and is “taking a much-needed break from family obligations.”
At least he was. 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. That second story isn’t even about him. It concerns Jeff Cook, a former classmate the man barely knew but who, he admits, “was one of those minor players from the past who claimed for himself an outsize role in my memories.”
10 noteworthy books for January
By chance, he and Cook are booked on the same flight to Frankfurt. After some small talk, Cook invites the man to wait out the delay with him in the first-class lounge. “Everything about him conveyed neatness and taste,” the writer, conscious of his “scuffed sneakers” and “scruffy backpack,” says of Cook, who at UCLA resembled “a sort of thrift-store Adonis” with “cascading hair” and “high, broad cheekbones.” More chitchat follows, the two exchange a couple of faded college memories, and then, with obvious calculation, Cook launches into the story — a confession, really — that will dominate the remainder of the men’s time in airport limbo as well as this brisk novel’s 65 chapters, some covering no more than a page.
If all that makes “Mouth to Mouth” sound a bit traditional, then good. It is, and refreshingly so. Like his characters, Wilson is a first-rate yarn spinner. Cook’s Tom Ripley-like story — and the wary narrator’s retelling of it — is loaded with fateful encounters, hidden agendas, shrouded identities, adulterous betrayals and brushes with death.
At least he was. 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. That second story isn’t even about him. It concerns Jeff Cook, a former classmate the man barely knew but who, he admits, “was one of those minor players from the past who claimed for himself an outsize role in my memories.”
10 noteworthy books for January
By chance, he and Cook are booked on the same flight to Frankfurt. After some small talk, Cook invites the man to wait out the delay with him in the first-class lounge. “Everything about him conveyed neatness and taste,” the writer, conscious of his “scuffed sneakers” and “scruffy backpack,” says of Cook, who at UCLA resembled “a sort of thrift-store Adonis” with “cascading hair” and “high, broad cheekbones.” More chitchat follows, the two exchange a couple of faded college memories, and then, with obvious calculation, Cook launches into the story — a confession, really — that will dominate the remainder of the men’s time in airport limbo as well as this brisk novel’s 65 chapters, some covering no more than a page.
If all that makes “Mouth to Mouth” sound a bit traditional, then good. It is, and refreshingly so. Like his characters, Wilson is a first-rate yarn spinner. Cook’s Tom Ripley-like story — and the wary narrator’s retelling of it — is loaded with fateful encounters, hidden agendas, shrouded identities, adulterous betrayals and brushes with death.