Detonator will be Out Sept 15, 2025!

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Peter Mountford’s Third Book will be out soon

The characters in Mountford's third book, Detonator, are struggling to do better, to save their souls. These 10 short stories are deeply preoccupied with the consequences of human decisions. Often funny and sometimes painful, these award-winning stories—which originally appeared in The Paris Review, Guernica, Boston Review, and Missouri Review—highlight flawed but fascinating characters making flawed choices in the hopes of achieving grace, or at least growth.

Even when the stories pivot on sex-induced brain aneurysms and recovery, or finding a connection in a country entering a civil war, the stories locate humor and vulnerability. What Mountford's characters understand is that everyone dies, and finding joy in life is how we make sense of the world.

Detonator, at its core, explores humanity's casual darkness, and how we must all contend with wanting to be better than their worse inclinations.