Sensorily rich and narratively captivating, the stories in Detonator are utterly addictive. Author Peter Mountford invites readers with a balance of humor, sensuality, and compassion while spanning continents, offering intimate portraits of flawed characters caught in the crosshairs of personal and political upheavals. In "One More Night Behind Walls," set against the early 1980s-onset of Sri Lanka's civil war, the young protagonist observes, "Some say the grown-ups used the war as an excuse to let go, but I think it's more like the war forced them together, and that's what made them go off the rails." Soon, the interpersonal dramas of the expat community beget casual debauchery and fatal consequences during a drunken New Year's Party.
In other stories, an American consultant faces personal and professional ruin after fateful decisions concerning Ecuador's post-revolution economy. A divorcee in her forties finds unexpected chemistry with her ex-husband's girlfriend after a Scottish Highland funeral. A married suburban feminist experiments with the escape of a dangerous love affair in Washington, D.C.
With remarkable sensitivity and psychological acuity, Mountford positions his characters not at the center of historical events, but at their peripheries -- witnesses to momentous changes they can only partially comprehend.
"Our minds were frail, troubled by old wounds that kept calling for help, and we were forever confused and looking in the wrong direction," says the character of the title story, "Detonator," about a man who blows up his life, again. And again.
Rather than rendering them insignificant, this perspective reveals their profound humanity as they navigate desire, grief, and meaning against political instability and social transformation.
Mountford illuminates each character with stunning humanity -- free from condescension -- as consequences swirl through even the purest intentions. With striking precision, he captures the visceral authenticity of emotions as characters gather fragmented understandings of their place in the world. Each story traces a unique path along the plane curve of history, honoring the messy, beautiful complexity of lifetimes unspooled and most of all -- lived.
About the Author :
Peter Mountford is the author of the novels A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism (winner of the Washington State Book Award in Fiction), and The Dismal Science (a New York Times editor's choice). His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Southern Review, the New York Times magazine, The Atlantic magazine, The Sun, Ploughshares, and Guernica. He teaches creative writing at University of Nevada, Reno, at Tahoe's low-residency MFA program, and through MountfordWriting.com, and currently lives in Seattle, Washington.
Review :
In this perceptive collection, Mountford (The Dismal Science) unearths the inner struggles of characters caught in the middle of political and private battles....Mountford is an expert at locating what makes his characters tick and how they handle crises, as with the title story's married couple, struck "by old wounds... forever confused and looking in the wrong direction." There's plenty of heat in this wide-ranging volume.-- "Publishers Weekly" (7/11/2025 12:00:00 AM)
"Detonator is an inventive, perceptive, and darkly funny collection of stories, situated near the busy intersection of money, memory, and sex. Like a twenty-first-century Graham Greene, Peter Mountford has traveled the globe to create a kind of atlas of longing and loss."
--Jess Walter
"The stories in Detonator are hilarious, even when they are miserable. Their humor is unfailingly intelligent and it makes room for unexpected grace; Mountford wins you over even if you don't want to be won over."
--Mary Gaitskill
"Whatever sort of surprise you're after-funny, devastating, sexy, shocking, savage, tender, illuminating-Detonator will supply it, in Mountford's exquisitely tuned and attentive prose. Like Mary Gaitskill, Mountford has a gift for creating crystalline articulations of the messiness inside us. I loved these stories, and I learned from them."
--Karen Russell
