ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 * An NPR and Time
Best Book of the Year * Longlisted for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize
(Canada) * Finalist for CALIBA's 2022 Golden Poppy Awards
A successful art dealer confesses the story of his meteoric rise
in this "powerful, intoxicating, and shocking" (The New York Times)
novel that's a "slow burn à la Patricia Highsmith" (Oprah Daily).
"You'll struggle not to rip through in one sitting" (Vogue).
In a first-class lounge at JFK airport, our narrator listens as Jeff
Cook, a former classmate he only vaguely remembers, shares the uncanny
story of his adult life--a life that changed course years before, the
moment he resuscitated a drowning man.
Jeff reveals that after that traumatic, galvanizing morning on the
beach, he was compelled to learn more about the man whose life he had
saved, convinced that their fates were now entwined. But are we agents
of our fate--or are we its pawns? Upon discovering that the man is
renowned art dealer Francis Arsenault, Jeff begins to surreptitiously
visit his Beverly Hills gallery. Although Francis does not seem to
recognize him as the man who saved his life, he nevertheless casts his
legendary eye on Jeff and sees something worthy. He takes the younger
man under his wing, initiating him into his world, where knowledge,
taste, and access are currency; a world where value is constantly
shifting and calling into question what is real, and what matters. The
paths of the two men come together and diverge in dizzying ways until
the novel's staggering ending.
Sly, suspenseful, and "gloriously addicting" (BuzzFeed), Mouth to
Mouth masterfully blurs the line between opportunity and exploitation,
self-respect and self-delusion, fact and fiction--exposing the myriad
ways we deceive each other, and ourselves.
