Every Tuesday and Thursday, in Melnitz Hall, his myth disintegrated further, the slow grind of familiarity rendering him into just another undergrad, a fellow non-film major as clueless as I was about the movies we were discussing.

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. When he sees there’s a vacancy for an assistant at the man’s art gallery, he applies and gets the job. I came across Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson in a publisher’s catalogue, and requested it for some unknown reason (likely, on a whim).akin to the talky, but fascinating, movie My Dinner With Andre — if that conversation took place in an airport lounge instead of a fancy restaurant. Arsenault becomes the poster child for what not to do with a second chance, quickly becoming the novel’s antagonist. This was a slow burn story that somehow captured my attention, though at times the narrative seemed a bit over done, a bit drawn out, but thats the point. Jeff becomes obsessed with this man whose life he’s saved, tracking down his identity, spending days observing him, not quite plucking up the courage to reveal himself.

The novel’s cleverest trick is how he and Cook interrogate their roles as storyteller and audience . Jeff had to know more about the man he saved and one day, finds himself visiting the man’s art gallery. Wilson’s artistry makes it effortless for readers to empathize with Cook’s exhaustion and disgust, as well as his determination to keep the drowned man alive until he regains consciousness.Expert foreshadowing lets you know that the end is not likely to have been a good one for either the saved man or the savior. Jeff becomes a little obsessed with this man he has saved and worms his way into his life, which at times is a bit unsettling. This leads him into both the man’s art-dealing business and then his personal life, making him think about the consequences of having saved a life when that life may not be a very commendable one. As he confides, ‘I wanted him to be good, though, I wanted to feel that I had done a good thing not only for him but for all the people he came in contact with.

Francis is a complex character whose dubious morality is well drawn and Wilson’s depiction of the art world is biting, the market rather than the art taking centre stage. I felt that things had happened to me without my knowledge, which they had, of course, and I was left with the uncanny sense that I wasn’t the same person who had gone under.Born in Montreal and raised in Central and Southern California as well as Saudi Arabia, he now lives with his family in Los Angeles.

Jeff seems to do most of the talking as he tells a story about saving another man from drowning about 20 years ago and how he became obsessed with that man who turned out to be a well known art dealer. The start point, and the key to all that follows, is his intervention one morning when spots a man in severe difficulty off Santa Monica beach.

The plot picks up pace as Jeff insinuates himself into Francis’s life, and the more dramatic Francis’s life reveals itself to be, the faster everything moves, us hearing less and less from the narrator, everything eventually overtaken by Jeff’s story. As he slowly gets more and more involved in this man's life his judgments and motivations become more and more murky.