Mouth to Mouth

'Carries distinct shades of Patricia Highsmith and Donna Tartt... Supremely gripping' - Vogue, Best Books of 2022

A struggling author is stuck at the airport, his flight endlessly delayed. As he kills time, he bumps into a former classmate of his, Jeff, who is waiting for the same flight. Jeff invites the author to drinks in the First Class lounge, and there, swearing him to secrecy, begins confiding in him the disturbing story of his gilded life, starting with a pivotal incident from his youth...

Alone on the beach one morning, Jeff notices a swimmer drowning in the rough surf - and so he rescues and resuscitates the man, before leaving him to the emergency services. But Jeff can't let go of the events of that traumatic day, and he begins to feel compelled to get closer to the man whose life he has saved. Upon discovering that the man is the renowned art dealer Francis Arsenault, Jeff begins to surreptitiously visit his gallery, eventually applying there for a job. Although Francis doesn't seem to recognize him, he takes him under his wing, exposing him to a world of unimaginable power and wealth. Seduced by the lifestyle, Jeff pursues an ever deeper connection with Francis, until morals become corrupted, people get hurt and their relationship becomes darker, leaving him to wonder... should he have just let Francis drown?

'Breathes new life into the literary thriller... In a landscape of literary fiction trending towards navel-gazing, it's a delight to read a pacy story, well told.' - Financial Times



'The ghost of Tom Ripley hangs over this slippery tale, as the reader is forced to repeatedly appraise the material they are being told while willingly succumbing to its grip. A novel to gulp in one sitting'. - Guardian


'Antoine Wilson's Mouth to Mouth is the best book I've read in ages. Narratively ingenious, delicately written, intriguingly plotted, it is literature of the highest quality. I see you now, dear Reader, with this novel in your hand and already losing track of time....' - Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Less


'Antoine Wilson's Mouth to Mouth is sleek, swift, and graceful, an agile novel of ideas with unexpectedly sharp teeth' - Lauren Groff, National Book Award winning author of Florida


'Antoine Wilson has written a spellbinding novel of laserlike insight and exquisite technique that reveals how stories can function to conceal other stories. I read this book in one rapturous sitting, jotting down line after line, riveted until the final shocking, clarifying sentence.' - Sarah Manguso, author of 300 Arguments


'A masterful novel that aims straight at the heart of the mythologized self, which, like the world of art and commerce that provides the story's backdrop, trades in all forms of performance and deception. Antoine Wilson's on a high wire and he never makes a wrong move.' - Marisa Silver, author of Little Nothing and The Mysteries

Antoine Wilson is the author of the novels Panorama City and The Interloper. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Story Quarterly, and Best New American Voices, among other publications, and he is a contributing editor of the literary magazine A Public Space as well as the Los Angeles Review of Books. He lives in Los Angeles.

In the jinxy spirit of Portrait of a Thief , a compelling, one-sitting literary thriller of imposters and malevolent morals, in which a man pulls another man from the rough surf...and then wishes he'd just let him drown 'Carries distinct shades of Patricia Highsmith and Donna Tartt... Supremely gripping' - Vogue , Best Books of 2022 A struggling author is stuck at the airport, his flight endlessly delayed. As he kills time, he bumps into a former classmate of his, Jeff, who is waiting for the same flight. Jeff invites the author to drinks in the First Class lounge, and there, swearing him to secrecy, begins confiding in him the disturbing story of his gilded life, starting with a pivotal incident from his youth... Alone on the beach one morning, Jeff notices a swimmer drowning in the rough surf - and so he rescues and resuscitates the man, before leaving him to the emergency services. But Jeff can't let go of the events of that traumatic day, and he begins to feel compelled to get closer to the man whose life he has saved. Upon discovering that the man is the renowned art dealer Francis Arsenault, Jeff begins to surreptitiously visit his gallery, eventually applying there for a job. Although Francis doesn't seem to recognize him, he takes him under his wing, exposing him to a world of unimaginable power and wealth. Seduced by the lifestyle, Jeff pursues an ever deeper connection with Francis, until morals become corrupted, people get hurt and their relationship becomes darker, leaving him to wonder... should he have just let Francis drown?

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