Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson

I read this because it was on Obama's 2022 summer reading list, which is where I often find a great read that I might otherwise have overlooked, and also where I am never disappointed, even if I don't love the book. This one is a keeper, a slim volume that packs a punch. The unnamed narrator of this book runs into an old acquaintance from college some 20 years later in an airport where they are both waiting to board a flight to Frankfurt. The Flight is delayed and the old friend, Jeff, invites him to wait with him in a members only setting--who would refuse? Not I. Ensconced in the lounge, Jeff starts to share his tale. A few years after college, he rescued an older man from drowning in the waves off a Santa Monica beach. The saved man, Francis, turns out to be an art dealer. In revelations that are slowly uncovered — and that continue up until the last page — Jeff becomes enmeshed in the man’s life. He goes to work for him, not revealing who he is. He dates the man's daughter. He becomes part of the family in a weird, classist, worker bee kind of way. And he reflects on the saving of a man's life. It’s no spoiler to say that Francis turns out to be a manipulative jerk, and that there is a bit of the "what if" about this that twists and turns and comes to what for me was a very satisfactory conclusion.