Nosy Interview: Peter Mountford

 Peter and Anna nuzzle in front of Comet Hale-Bopp over Val Parola Pass, © A. Dimai

Peter and I met through Seattle Arts & Lectures' Writers in the Schools program. His debut novel, A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism, was released in April, and if you're lucky you can still catch him on tour. For more on Mountford, please visit his website.

What do you smell like? 

There was a girl I dated for a while once, a long time ago, who used very pungent perfume, very trashy perfume. It was great. My clothes would all smell like I'd been at a brothel. It was a hoot for a while but unsupportable in the long run.

In high school, I worked as an ice cream scooper at Ben & Jerry's in DC and stank of sweet cream. That was six months of my life there. Ten years I didn't eat ice cream after that. 
 

Nowadays, when I take a long flight, I stink. Why is that? Like, at the end of a day at home, I don't stink, but if I spend twelve hours on an airplane, I need to put on some deodorant. What's up with that?
 

Otherwise, like, in general, I don't smell me, so I don't really know how I smell. I use the cheapest and plainest deodorant on the planet, just regular flavored speed stick. And, don't tell anyone, but I also spritz myself daily with a blast of fancy cologne. My wife, she doesn't ever complain.

What do you like to smell?

I have this baby who I used to like to smell. Her name is Anna and for a long time she smelled just great, like fresh milk and baby. No washing needed. Breath was pristine, too. Even her poo didn't smell that bad, just kind of like butter. It's hard to dislike someone who smells that good.
 

This was all, I've learned, part of nature's chicanery: it's just a ploy to trick parents into not ditching their babies, because the babies smell so damn good and have these big sweet eyes and then you think twice about chucking them into the river when they howl at night. 

That smell was incredible, though!  She got filthy and still smelled the same. That was great. Then she got a bit older and we started feeding her tiny cheeseburgers and buttered succotash and stuff and suddenly the poo became really horrible and her general smell was not far behind. We wash her all the time now, but at best she smells like a person who just got out of the shower. It's okay. Her breath is still good. And I still like her, but it's not the same.