Book Launch Party for Peter Mountford’s THE DISMAL SCIENCE

Celebrate the release of Peter Mountford’s new novel, The Dismal Science, which follows middle-aged vice-president at the World Bank Vincenzo D’Orsi as he quits his job, inciting a scandal. Peter will read from the book, and a Q&A moderated by Tin House editor Tony Perez will follow. The bar will be open, appetizers are free, and books will be for sale by Elliott Bay Book Company.

ADVANCED PRAISE FOR THE DISMAL SCIENCE

“In his fiercely intelligent second novel, Mountford examines, with wry humor and sympathy leavened with a realistic accounting of Vincenzo D’Orsi’s flaws and failings, the repercussions of a decision made in haste and—perhaps—regretted at leisure. Or not regretted. Who could have ever predicted that an economist at the World Bank could be such a terrific main character? I absolutely loved The Dismal Science.”

—NANCY PEARL, NPR commentator and author of the Book Lust series

“Quietly wrenching, sharply drawn and completely un-put-downable. With The Dismal Science, Peter Mountford asserts himself as our generation’s most significant business-world ombudsman, a deft and unflinching exponent of the human side of a polarizing world few of us actually understand.”

 —TEA OBREHT, author of The Tiger’s Wife

“The Dismal Science is exuberant art, a deep, moving comedy about grief, guilt, and the heart’s geopolitics. Mountford writes with soul and style and makes the plight of his protagonist count.” 

—SAM LIPSYTE, author of The Ask and The Fun Parts

“Peter Mountford’s elegantly written The Dismal Science—an advance on his superb first novel—is an extremely impressive imagining by a relatively young writer into a relatively old man’s life. It also is a brilliant extrapolation of the economist’s ‘dismal science’ into a metaphor for the difficult fate of any living, breathing, dying human being.” 

—DAVID SHIELDS, author of The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead

“The Dismal Science is a beautiful novel: stark, powerful, and life-affirming.  Vincenzo’s haunting journey will stay with me for a very, very long time.” 

—GARTH STEIN, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain