TheBookWarren's Reviews > Mouth to Mouth

4.50 Stars — What an odd-story indeed. With its short and sharp chapters that leave you wanting more more more, the unnamed character, and audience at the centre of this story is — for me — it’s finest asset though as he acts on our behalf in a quizzical and comical way only to somehow simultaneously also not want us to know quite as much as he does.. fascinating stuff. It’s the kind of writing and prose that you enjoy literally sentence by sentence. Sharp, unnerving and unsettling yet subtle!

Mouth to Mouth tells the tale of an author whom awaiting his flight to Germany — amidst chasing a hole that he’d become somewhat of a Cult-status author, has a chance encounter with an old College acquaintance, whom winds up sharing a story of his life that throws the author and readers through a very eerily, strange yet poignant loop.

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.

The story of Francis Arcenou is quite hypnotic and ultimately, wonderful. Wilson weaves the narrative ever so delicately whilst always maintaining that urgent sense of foreboding, but in manner that tickles the joints as opposed to pounds the psyche. This is the real gift Wilson brings. Writing in a near split-personality type structure, the story pings from Jeff’s telling of the story to the unknown-author’s perspective seamlessly and without any abridging or cutting of the building narrative. What a delightful method for storytelling.

The First-Class-Lounge setting at an airport is the excellently-utilised vessel for this odd and incredibly well-told story of a man who saves another’s life, then becomes fixated on what the consequences of that act will be, albeit without ever “intending” to do any of it. Ultimately, this is a story of sliding-door moments, a fate vs fickle-lottery of random events type battle that culminates in an ending well befitting it’s setup.

Wilson guides the reader expertly and writes with exquisite prose whether telling either perspective, punchy sharp sentences for the narrator, long-winded self-indulgent fantasist paragraphs for Jeff.

This one left me with a wry grin on my face, something I found rather befitting. This is an excellent story that is best read in one long or two medium sessions to fully immerse in the truly brilliant narrative.