The Consequences
Stories
Shimmering writing depicting California's Central Valley, the first book in a decade from a virtuoso story writer.
These exquisite stories are mostly set in the 1980s in the small towns that surround Fresno. With an unflinching hand, Munoz depicts the Mexican and Mexican American farmworkers who put food on our tables but were regularly and ruthlessly rounded up by the migra, as well as the quotidian struggles and immense challenges faced by their families.
The messy and sometimes violent realities navigated by his characters-straight and gay, immigrant and American-born, young and old-are tempered by moments of surprising, tender care: Two young women meet on a bus to Los Angeles to retrieve the men they love who must find their way back from the border after being deported; a gay couple plans a housewarming party that reveals buried class tensions; a teenage mother slips out to a carnival where she encounters the father of her child; the foreman of a crew of fruit pickers finds a dead body and is subsequently-perhaps literally- haunted.
In The Consequences, obligation can shape, support, and sometimes derail us. It's a magnificent new book from a gifted writer at the height of his powers.
‘Each story reveals an entire life. Muñoz is one of the best writers working in America.’ – Susan Straight
‘Haunting, powerful, humble, precise, this collection shook my being.’ – Sandra Cisneros
‘Manuel Muñoz’s stories are melancholy, assured, and unforgettable.’ – Colin Barrett
Raised in tiny Dinuba, California, Manuel Muñoz is the son of farmworkers and worked in the fields himself in his youth. The town newspaper celebrated him when he received a full scholarship to Harvard. He was later accepted in Cornell’s MFA program, and is currently teaching in the Creative Writing program at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Muñoz is the author of two previous collections and a novel. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award, three O. Henry Awards, and has appeared in Best American Short Stories.
