May 28, 2025
Peter Mountford
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Peter Mountford
He smiles in this contorted way, like he's straining or in pain, which is what he does when he's laughing at her.
Peter Mountford, Pay Attention
-history doesn't disappear if you turn away from it...
Peter Mountford, Pay Attention
No one knows what they want until they do, and then they know nothing else. That's what she thinks.
Peter Mountford, Pay Attention
January Book Club: Ongoingness: The End of a Diary, by Sarah Manguso
from Graywolf
APRIL Book Club features are selected by Seattle authors and community members. This month’s pick comes from Peter Mountford. Peter is the events curator at Seattle’s Hugo House and author of two novels: A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), and The Dismal Science (Tin House Books, 2014). The Dismal Science was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award in Fiction and a New York Times Editor's Choice. A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism won the 2012 Washington State Book Award in fiction. His short work has appeared in The Atlantic, the New York Times Magazine, Granta, Best New American Voices 2008, Conjunctions, Southern Review, Salon, Slate, and Boston Review.
I have long been a very avid fan of Manguso's work. I read Two Kinds of Decay years ago, and was very taken with the contrast between her very agonizing material and her clear-eyed and unsentimental, almost astringent, prose style. I often teach the Lives essay that came out alongside that book, called "The Cure," which is, to my mind, the best "Lives" essay ever published (for those who don't know, "Lives" is a weekly very very short essay in the NYT Magazine). I read The Guardians, her book which is ostensibly about the suicide of a friend of hers, a few years ago, I think when it came out. The book is very short -- her books seem to get shorter and shorter, as she whittles ever more out of each successive volume -- and fragmentary. It's very much a collage book, very pointillistic and non-linear. Again, the style is so shockingly unsentimental that it demands your attention, in a certain way. Although I'd long been a fan of Manguso's I'd never met her until last year (2015), when she happened to be in town the night my girlfriend Jessica and I were hosting a dinner party for some writer friends, so we invited her. It was one of those things where it's very strange to meet the person after reading so carefully so much of her writing. Especially since her form is the personal essay, so in a sense I know quite a bit about her. She turned out to be a human being, after all, much to my relief. And now she has this new book. So I really want to read it.
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In Janaury, the APRIL Book Club will meet Sunday, 1/10 at 4pm at Little Oddfellows, the cafe in Elliott Bay Book Company.
Even before I opened The Dismal Science by Peter Mountford, I wanted to share it with my dad. The main character, Vincenzo, is an economist and vice president at the World Bank. My dad is a forest economist who’s worked for USAID and spoken at the UN. Kismet, right? As I delved deeper into Mountford’s wry humor and brilliantly aware look at the world of an economist, I got closer and closer to ordering a copy for my dad for Father’s Day. It reminded me so much of him and the things he’s taught me that wanted him to share this book with me.
And then I realized he already had.
Art Imitates Life
Because what I loved about the book, aside from the re-immersion into the world of economics (for a brief few years I thought I’d go into International Political Economics and work at the World Bank), was that I felt closer to my dad while reading it. Mountford’s portrayal of a man testing the boundaries of his career as he jumps into a midlife crisis felt very real and very personal. It brought back all kinds of memories of when my dad’s career took a sharp left turn. Vincenzo is sick of being told what to do by the administration so he pushes back and ends up jobless (despite several attempts by colleagues to get him to save himself). My dad pushed up against his own administrative constraints as he battled with an unreasonable dean and ended up an independent consultant (which is when the really interesting work began).
All the while Vincenzo is battling with his college-aged daughter over her vision of who he should be. My dad was battling with teenaged me (okay, I may have been battling with him) over, well, everything.
Flexibility of Thinking
“‘Any good economist knows how to read the data in a way to get a favorable result’” – Peter Mountford, The Dismal Science
Sometimes I think having a background in Economics is a curse. It’s also a crazy blessing. What my dad taught me is that economists have this amazing ability to pull back and view the entire world as a game with rational actors behaving in their own best interests. If the game pieces (people) aren’t behaving the way you think they should, then the model is wrong and you go and reassess your parameters. This flexibility of thought is the most amazing resource for a writer and I think Mountford (whose father is also an economist) must have benefited from the same education because there’s an openness about this book and the possible results that arrange themselves in front of Vincenzo.
But the thing is that Economics is also the opposite of Creative Writing in a lot of ways. It’s creative all right (see openness of possible results), but the best books create a sense of deep empathy that’s missing from the (dismal) science of behavior. I’m not saying empathy is missing in economists, but I do think that for men like Vincenzo and my dad, operating at the level of the intellect in ignorance of their sweet hearts is what causes their breaks.
You see, my dad the academic is probably also the biggest softie on the inside that I’ve ever met. But something about the combination of the generation he was born into (men will be Men) and life with his father made my dad think he needed to hide all those feelings. (It’s actually a family thing my cousin was just in town and the phrase she used most often was “have FEELINGS about” which is the perfect way of showing exactly where my generation of McKettas is in the struggle to integrate our intellects with our hearts as we earn more graduate degrees than I can count while learning that it’s okay to cry at least occasionally).
I don’t know if it’s Mountford’s wonderful sense of empathy or his clean reportage that let me get so deep into Vincenzo’s crisis, but The Dismal Science is both deeply human and intellectual in the most wonderful ways.
Breaking to Build
“When Leonora called fifteen minutes later, she was rapturous, beginning: ‘Oh my fucking God, Dad, what did you do?!’ He hadn’t heard her sound so pleased with him in years. In fact, he couldn’t remember a time that she’d sounded so pleased with him.” – Peter Mountford
Vincenzo’s break may in part be caused by seeing for a moment his life through the eyes of his daughter, Leonora as she asks him how he’d feel if she protested in front of his office. I don’t know if daughters really have that kind of power, but I think we do, and I’ve often felt like my dad’s touchstone. After Vincenzo goes off the deep end, he meets up with Leonora again for another check-in, he realizes how much she admires this new turn he’s taken.
I don’t know that my dad has ever had that aha! moment where he gets insight into how much I admire him. Our nonfiction relationship is more complicated. We commiserated once about an Econ professor we’d both had, but I don’t think I ever told him I considered going into IPE. And when he’s shared his deepest feelings with me, I’ve probably been in reactive “Let me be a kid” mode. But I know where my dad comes from and as much as I brag about his forays into the Khyber Pass with USAID, his visits to Afghanistan and the Philippines, or his testimony before Congress, what I am most proud of are the moments where he lets the world see his incredibly caring heart. It takes a lot of work to break out from our collective McKetta Intellectual Shield and share your FEELINGS. It’s messy and it hurts (and sometimes feels like you’re inside Garden State). Worst of all, it’s imperfect.
Screw that. BEST of all it’s imperfect. Because it’s human. Because it’s the closest any of us can be to Baba–my grandmother who we all deified because she was kind, gentle, and caring–the woman who we knew we didn’t have the courage to be.
The Art of Imperfection
I’ve had a very imperfect year. I’ve been really busy with a lot of important things. I’ve made new connections and leveled up on the career ladder (in more than one career path). But I’ve neglected the people who make me feel human. And although I wanted desperately to send my dad a copy of this book, I was worried he’d see in that some sort of impugning of his human side. So instead I sent him nothing this Father’s Day–in a year when I think he could most use my admiration and love.
So here it is, Dad. This is your Father’s Day gift. I read a book that reminded me so much of you for exactly the opposite reasons you’d think. Instead of the “failure” you remember, it reminded me of your courage and your sweet heart. It reminded me that you are more Baba than you’ll ever know. It’s not an easy road, but it’s a rewarding one. And if you choose to continue following it, know that I’m looking up to you along the way.
What We Read into Books
There is so much more to The Dismal Science than Vincenzo’s career suicide and his relationship with his daughter. Some people might relate deeply to his relationship with Walter or the ebb and flow of his libido. You might rejoice in his willingness to throw politics aside and end up embroiled in new politics in a third world country. The art of what Mountford has done with this book is to create one gorgeous story with multiple entry points. You can see how it sucked me in. I’ll be interested to see how it reads from your point of view.
If you want to participate in the discussion, pick up a copy of The Dismal Science from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.
The post Reflecting on The Dismal Science of Fatherhood appeared first on A Geography of Reading.
I met the sensational writer Peter Mountford when I went to speak with him about one of my stories-in-progress. He's the writer in residence for Hugo House, one of those places writers hang out sharing pieces, sipping cocktails and coffee, and gathering expertise about the craft. After we talked about the short story, he asked me about my memoir, and gave me some ideas about how I might approach getting the book seen. Later that year, I'd meet Suzanne Morrison (Yoga Bitch) at a Hugo House dinner, and she introduced me to the agency who would represent me. Thanks to her connection to the story (she cried when I told her parts of it) as well as Suzanne's kind nature, the book was on its way. Shortly after I finished this interview with Peter for our blog, (and one that I published on The Nervous Breakdown), I went to his book launch at Hugo House. Peter introduced me to Tony Perez at Tin House Books, who would successfully bid to become the publisher for Wondering Who You Are. The book will be out in the spring of 2015! So, even though Peter Mountford has written one of the most skillful novels you'll read this year, The Dismal Science, I know him as one of the generous community of Seattle writers who helped my book find its way to one of the finest literary editors in the land. Thanks, sir. Listen to his comments on identity here. Check out my interview here. And go buy his book.
"If you notice a slight uptick in the number of verbose, bedraggled, and socially inept people in downtown and Capitol Hill this week, it's because about 13,000 aspiring and no-longer-aspiring writers are collecting at the convention center for the 2014 Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Conference (February 26–March 1). As someone with an MFA degree (Master of Fuck All), and an attendee of most of the last decade's AWPs, I'm here to tell you that this should be fun if you like reading and writing. Actually, even if you don't care about reading and writing, it should be at least amusing."
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