Mouth to Mouth: ‘Gripping... Shades of Patricia Highsmith and Donna Tartt’ Vogue

Product Information

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.

I just want you to keep in mind that what we see, what we think we see, I should say, is always changed by the words in our heads,” the narrator of “Panorama City” says in a message to his unborn son.A fascinating contemporary twist on the classic ‘as told to’ novel, like Lord Jim and much of Somerset Maugham, which strands two old accquaintances in an airport VIP lounge==with a slight flavor of a Mr. In addition to reading books and watching documentaries on the contemporary art world, Wilson took inspiration for this setting from his experiences working in the field in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Much like he did for his characters, Wilson employs detailed descriptions of the Los Angeles art scene to make the atmosphere tangible. The unnamed narrator waits for a delayed flight with fellow passenger Jeff Cook in the first class lounge, listening intently as Cook recounts the events of his life after college.After some small talk, Cook invites the man to wait out the delay with him in the first-class lounge. While they await their delayed flight, Jeff recounts the story of how he saved a drowning man’s life at the beach years earlier and how doing so redirected the course of his own life.