The Consequences: Stories

by Manuel Muñoz

Shimmering stories set in California’s Central Valley, the first book in a decade from a virtuoso story writer.

“Her immediate concern was money.” So begins the first story in Manuel Muñoz’s dazzling new collection. In it, Delfina has moved from Texas to California’s Central Valley with her husband and small son, and her isolation and desperation force her to take a risk that ends in profound betrayal.

These exquisite stories are mostly set in the 1980s in the small towns that surround Fresno. With an unflinching hand, Muñoz depicts the Mexican and Mexican American farmworkers who put food on our tables but are 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 husbands 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.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Historical Fiction, LGBT, Latinx, Queer, Literary Fiction

181 pages, Paperback

First published October 18, 2022

About the author

Manuel Munoz's dazzling collection is set in a Mexican-American neighborhood in central California-a place where misunderstandings and secrets shape people's lives. From a set of triplets with three distinct fates to a father who places his hope-and life savings-in the hands of a faith healer, the characters in these stories cross paths in unexpected ways. As they do, they reveal a community that is both embracing and unforgiving, and they discover a truth about the nature of home: you always live with its history. Munoz is an explosive new talent who joins the ranks of such acclaimed authors as Junot Diaz and Daniel Alarcon.Manuel Muoz is the author of one previous story collection, Zigzagger. Originally from California, he now lives in New York City."

Reviews

[Thomas]

A somber short story collection about Latinx immigrant families in the 1980s living in or near Fresno, California. I thought Manuel Muñoz did a great job of highlighting how forces related to class and poverty, gender, and immigrant status affect his characters’ lives. Unfortunately, for the majority of the stories I found the writing flat and that the characters didn’t pop or come alive from the page, even if their circumstances were compelling. However, I did deeply enjoy the final story in the collection “What Kind of Fool Am I?” about an eldest sister who watches her younger brother engage in self-destructive behaviors and tries to intervene to protect him again and again. This story felt like more in the 4-5 star range for me, and I loved how Muñoz portrayed his protagonist’s struggle and eventual growth in both caring about her brother and recognizing what is best for her, even if what’s best feels hard.

[Catherine Clapperton]

A vibrant collection of stories that paint a picture of 1980s Fresno.

The stories touch upon difficult themes as they explore the characters lives. These span young and old, straight and gay, American born and immigrants.

Family also plays a big part of a number of the stories, showing the love and commitment we have to those family members. Their daily struggles are expertly brought to life as we're transported into these memorable tales.

[Emma Hardy]

A powerful and moving collection of short stories that makes you feel like a fly on the wall into people's lives.
This felt very much like real people with real lives and is so convincing its easy to forget its fiction. This doesn't hide away from topical and difficult issues but tackles them head on and raises questions.

A gripping collection.

[Banu Yıldıran Genç]

manuel muñoz’un öyküleri “neticeler”i biraz geç de olsa okudum. bence livera’nın gözden kaçmış kitaplarından biri. çok güçlü, güzel öyküler.
asıl olarak meksikalı göçmenler, teksas’tan, başka yerlerden fresno’ya narenciye toplamaya gelenler, habire sınır dışı edilenler ve yine geri gelip ölene dek çalışanlar hakkında… öykülerdeki göçmenlik ve sınıf meselesi bambaşka detaylarla işlenmiş.
ama sadece bu değil. pek çok öyküde queer karakterler var, evden ayrılmak isteyen genç oğlanlar, mecburen evlenmiş ama yaşamın bir yerinde özünü yaşamak isterken evinden uzakta kaybolan orta yaşlı erkekler, sınıf atlamaya çalışan partnerini tanıyamayanlar, terk ettiği erkek arkadaşının ölüm haberini alıp kimseyi tanımadan kilisedeki cenazeye katılıp hüngür hüngür ağlayan adamlar…
manuel muñoz için zamanında latino’lar için böyle öyküler çok erken denerek yayımlanması reddedilmiş öykülerin gururlu yazarı diyebiliriz sanırım. çünkü akademisyenlik yaptığı üniversitede öğrencilerine hem teninin rengi hem de kimliğiyle örnek teşkil etmiş.
queer yazarlarda çok şükrettiğim özellikleriden birisi kadını da erkeği de aynı hakiki tonla anlatabilmeleri. buradaki öykülerde de kadın anlatıcılar da var erkek de ama sesleri de hisleri de son derece gerçekçi. lubunya kardeşine bakıcılık yapmak zorunda kalan abla da sınırdan geri gönderilecek erkek arkadaşını beklemeye los angeles’a giden kadın da babasına refakat ederken çaresizce geçmişe saplanan ailenin ne iş yaptığı belirsiz küçük oğlu da aynı şekilde etkiliyor bizi.
yine de ilk öykü benim için en unutulmaz oldu. “herkes yapabilir” yeni geldiği kasabada yapayalnız kalan genç bir kadının komşusuyla kurduğu kız kardeşlik hakkında demek isterdim… oysa öyle bir çeviriyor ki yazar öyküyü geriye açlık, sefalet ve çaresizlik kalıyor.
fatih yiğiter tertemiz çevirmiş, arkadaşım aylin misler gibi tashih yapmış. iyi ki okudum dediğim kitaplardan “neticeler”.

[Royce]

I decided to read this short story collection because it won the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates’ award. I had never read Manuel Munoz’s writing before, but I look forward to reading more of his work because his writing is excellent. He has a subtle way of pulling one into the story slowly but completely.

The best word to describe these stories is melancholy. All of the stories feature Latinos (some born across the border in Mexico/others born in America) and take place in Fresno, California in the 1980’s. There are characters struggling to survive, understand or accept their sexuality, find a place for themselves in their respective families. The family is extremely important in Latino culture and its significance and value is featured over and over again, in each story. Although I describe these stories as melancholy, none of them felt depressing, but rather probing and heartfelt. Beautifully written and quite compelling stories. Highly recommended.

[Ed]

If you are following my reviews, it will come as no surprise that I read this one as I had the chance to see Manuel Munoz at the 2023 Santa Fe International Literary Festival. I was not familiar with him, and only peripherally aware of this book (it had some buzz in my literary social media circles), but I was excited to see an LGBTQ author at this year's festival. One thing of about attending the festival and then reading the books by the author's I had seen, particularly ones that I was not familiar with before the festival, I have been really struck by how much of the author's personality and temperament come through in their writing. I know this should be no surprise, but spending a weekend listening to a bunch of authors it's something I now kind of notice.

So anyhow, Munoz was quiet, reflective, modest, humble, and charming and that is certainly the tone of this short story collection, primarily taking place in the California's Central Valley - Munoz's early stomping grounds. The stories are often about immigrant farm workers, both "legal" and not, but a theme more of family and relationships and struggles. There are also several stories about Mexican American gay men, which felt like a fresh perspective to me and one that Munoz can speak to. As I said above, they are quiet and reflective -- so there is not a bit or flashy WOW! factor or some shocking twists and turns, but just slices of life -- with the WOW! factor being Munoz's stellar prose and ability to create characters and settings that feel very authentic.

There were some connections/ties between the stories, once I realized so I'm guessing there were probably even more, but that's never my super-strong point/skill in this type of situation. But two stories that are very much connected really was a nice surprise and made me yearn for a full novel telling more of that particular story from its various perspectives.

As is my experience with most short story collections, some work better than others but again there is no denying Munoz's skill and empathy and, once again, I am glad to have "discovered" him at this year's festival.

[Loz Darwin]

A huge thank you to Indigo Press for this gorgeous book.

The stories in this short story collection had me smiling, nodding along with how the siblings are and gasping at times with the nod to the violence at the time towards Mexicans, females and gay relationships.

Family is a main point throughout the stories, the love of one and the trouble they can cause.

Hopefully not a spoiler but I loved the mention of earlier characters in the later stories. Showing how they can be connected.

Will definitely read more from Manuel Munoz

[Anya]

A good bunch o’ short stories — bonus treat that some of them ended up connecting with each other

[Solveig Asplund]

Wow. I was going to give this four stars because a few of the stories were of middling interest to me, but after reading the last story (WOW) I feel totally obligated to give it a 5.

The Consequences is the first short story collection I've finished during my semester-long goal of reading one short story a day, maybe because picking it up always felt the easiest. When I wasn't ready to delve into some heavy American anthology, Muñoz's prose always felt approachable, even if his stories often ended up leaving me feeling sort of weak in the knees. As he writes about queerness and Latinx community in the Southwest, family and obligation, secrets and longing, all of his stories have a sort of quiet, lethal rip current running through them, and I was consistently stunned by his skillful endings.

If you don't want to read the whole collection, I'd recommend "Anyone Can Do It" and "What Kind of Fool Am I?"... "The Reason is Because" if you really want to be amazed.

[Maddie]

A very good collection of stories about Latino immigrants and the Latino immigrant experience, with “familiar” ideas in these types of stories like migra vans and working in the fields, as well as more universal and broad reaching experiences in America such as poverty, class, gender and sexuality, loneliness and community, family and what we owe them… each story stands on its own but there were a few overlapping characters which was fun to spot. My favorite stories were What Kind of Fool Am I (about responsible sister Bea caring for her brother Teo/Teddy who we’d met earlier), Anyone Can Do It (about a single mother who is just trying to care for her son in a world that is taking advantage of her), and Susto (which had some Telltale Heart vibes.

[Vlad]

(3.5)

[The Atlantic]

"The stories in 'The Consequences,' Muñoz’s first book in more than a decade, are hauntingly simple. His language is powerful and layered; it doesn’t perform for readers or try to impress. The pared-down style gracefully highlights the collection’s steady focus on the lives and families of Mexican and Mexican American farmworkers in Central California. In these surprising, vivid stories, worries are deeply felt but not often spoken aloud, and obligation to kin and the need to survive outweigh much else. The disappearance of a husband triggers a dark financial misadventure; a fraught bus ride forges a temporary alliance; a boozy housewarming party unearths pent-up class tensions. Muñoz’s characters narrate their experiences—the constant threat of the 'migra,' the cumulative effects of deportation, the brisk logistics of picking fruit—with a wry candor. 'It’s easy but hard at the same time,' one character tells another about working in the fields. 'Anyone can do it. It’s just that no one really wants to.'"

https://www.theatlantic.com/books/arc...

[Tammy Mannarino]

Powerful and at times haunting stories. Munoz' collection is tied together thematically, but has few connections between characters. Each story stands alone with vivid and memorable characters. They are set in the latter part of the twentieth century but the struggles of the main characters are timeless and highly relevant in Today's society.

[Christopher Alonso]

There's so much love and subtlety in these stories. I'm in awe of Muñoz's ability to both simplify and complicate narrative tension all at once.

[Rick Herrera]

Excellent. One of the best collections of short stories I’ve read. Muñoz reveals experiences with elegance and grace.

[Erin Hovendon]

I've never read interconnected short stories before, and the interwoven threads were interesting to follow (or, in my case, mostly to notice after the fact... not sure I caught everything on the first pass, but that could be a consequence of reading this for a class). I loved the first story, and many of its merits—intimate commentary on immigration, familial tensions, and class—rang true for the rest of the collection. I read through a couple of stories without much of an interest in the characters, but for the most part I enjoyed Munoz's writing style and felt the underlying topics were treated with appropriate weight and complexity.

[Dan Ream]

The first story in this collection “Anyone Can Do It” served as my introduction to this author when it appeared in the Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story. While it’s probably my favorite of the 10 stories here, the others are very good too. Interestingly, a minor character in one story sometimes turns up as a major character in a later story here, giving you multiple perspectives on these characters. Munoz is an excellent storyteller and as he said in an interview I heard, every character in his stories, no matter how small, matters.

[Betsy]

Muñoz excels at crafting vignettes that really draw you in with strong characters and senses of place. I really admired how distinct each story felt while still all being linked at least thematically. Even shared characters felt different when seen through different POVs.

I think Presumido is probably my favorite of the stories, but Anyone Can Do It and What Kind of Fool Am I? are strong openers and closers respectively, and the titular The Consequences is great. And though I have my preferences, I don’t think any of the stories were a miss.

[Amy Keys]

I live everything this guy writes!

[Dree]

These loosely collected short stories focus on Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans living in the greater Fresno area. Many are farmworkers--both native born citizens and illegal aliens, young, old, lonely, in relationships, straight, gay. Mothers, fathers, childless.

I enjoyed these while reading them, but I am unsure if I will remember them for very long. I am very much looking forward to the California Book Club webinar with Munoz.

[mixturade]

Some of these stories reminded me of my favorite songs, those with lyrics of things I haven’t experienced yet that i turn over in my head.

[Mackenzie McFarlane]

2.5 -Started off quite strongly for me and then started waning..ended up DNF at about 70% mark. Probably won’t buy this one for the shelves but I would recommend others to read it and see what they think!

[Kkraemer]

The characters in this book are true and right, the kind of people you know if you've sat on a public bench, watching and listening to the voices around you in central California . There's the woman who takes the last of their money so that she can take the bus to L.A. or San Diego, for example, when her husband doesn't come home from the fields. She knows that, instead of paying his Friday salary, the bosses called La Migra, who take everyone, "legal" or not, to the border. She'll need to bring him back. There's also the girl whose baby has and will change her teenage life, as well as all the lives that she will live forever. There's the boy who knows that he has to get out of the small town, that he's drawn to men, and that, sooner or later, he'll have to have his sister come to rescue him. There's the father who ponders what he must do to be let back in the house, back to his place in the family, and, in the "rehab" center, an unemployed son listens to his grandfather ramble through his memories of the huge grapefruit, the beautiful nectarines, the tomatoes, the peaches, the good, hard muscle work of a lifetime.
These are stunning stories that must be read one at a time, so that they rest in your consciousness before taking up residence in your soul.

[Kate Lee]

I thought there was a real variation of stories in this collection; some really good, others not so compelling. I really enjoyed the first story (about the car and the other woman) as well as one about the man who died in the field, and then did not particularly like any of the ones with Teddy- from his lover & from his sister. I think the premise of all the stories was great and the interconnectedness was very fun! But the characters mostly felt pretty flat and didn't quite pop off the page- it felt like they had predictable emotions and often when the big "climaxes" of the stories happened, I was a little less emotionally affected because I didn't see the characters as fully believable. I think in particular the female characters were less well-written/complex. Overall, I'm really glad I read it for the stories and the fun of seeing the stories intertwine, but otherwise, I don't know if I found a ton of inspiration or meaning in the characters themselves.

[Lynn]

I don’t usually read short stories. I really enjoyed these stories!

[G]

Heartache, longing, obligation.

These are the words that come to mind when I think of these stories.

I’m not the biggest short story fan, but I thought Muñoz was masterful in his writing. The diversity of characters really kept it fresh, despite the characters all having many similarities.

This book will have you grateful for the softness in your life, as there is very little of that in this book.

I take a star away because, as always, I feel like there are too many unanswered questions (for my taste) in a short story collection. Some of these characters and stories were so rich and unfinished, that I think I would have rather seen longer stories about them. But maybe that’s the point of it? Maybe Muñoz was successful in their goals.

I think this book can be for everyone. A special recommendation for my fellow Latines who like stories about family issues and diverse ensemble casts. Also, surprisingly queer.

Alsooo - MAYBE a SPOILER but not really?

… scroll away if you want …

…

…

Last chance

…

I loved that the last story had a crossover with an earlier story. It really drove home the idea that despite their differences, they are unified by different things. It had me wondering if there were other crossovers I missed …

[Jose Roque Perez-Zetune]

really refreshing to read latinx lit from someone actually from our community without stereotypes writing honestly about our lives

second time reading thoughts:
his writing is so patient and exact. it’s creepy in a way how he nails the feeling of shame and obligation and dreaminess that revolves our lives. fieldwork was my favorite the first time around but now i think it’s what kind of fool am i.

[Helen]

the first story i read in a book shop on my lunch break a few years ago, and every couple of months since i think about it: the fruit groves, the headlights, the foreign jargon, the women who worked, the anxiety and disillusionment that’s suffused in every line, the acceptance of an ‘as is’ that does not suit.

and ofc the cover (wow, pretty).

even now after finishing it, every story has remained so vivid in my mind, a testament to munoz’s writing and ability to situate his readers inside all his characters’ brains. in the spirit of the new year, one thing i am grateful for is that first discovery of this book on my lunch break, and my brain’s subliminal tenacity of refusing me to forget about it.

stories rated:

1. anyone can do it (5/5)
2. the happiest girl in the whole usa (5/5) - i love women
3. presumido (5/5) - immigrant guilt be real
4. susto (3/5)
5. the reason is because (4/5) - i hate men - the prequel
6.the consequences (4.5/5) - devastating
7. compromisos (5/5) - i hate men, apparently now both gay and straight
8. fieldwork (4.5/5) - this one expresses the experiences post-immigration so well, assimilation challenges, this grief for a lost identity
9. that pink house at the end of the street in the other side of town (3/5) - i hate men pt.2
10. what kind of fool am i? (4/5) - perfectly crafted snapshot what it means to realise u have free will


favourite quotes:

🍊 My mother responded that she didn’t know English at the time. It was her way of saying that she had always wondered, but that she had no way of asking about something she had not been allowed to understand.

🍊 She was telling me to look, but she was also reminding me to listen, to not stay in my own questions. Maybe I would hear what I needed to hear.

🍊 Lo siento, one of them thought, how wrong it was to leave someone in tears, to not let their sorrow ever pierce them.

[Juliano]

“Their stories were not yet lost in their heads.” The stories that comprise Manuel Muñoz’s The Consequences are, despite their variety in tone and characters, deeply connected on levels of theme, intent, focus, and more. They all share a certain delicacy, stories told so finely that they would collapse in someone else’s voice; they share certain recurring characters and points of plot, reminiscent of Bryan Washington’s Lot, as these short stories start building towards a sum greater than its parts. And they are concerned with work (‘Anyone Can Do It’, ‘The Pink House at the End of the Street on the Other Side of Town’), migration, foreignness, fragility (‘The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA’, ‘Pink House’ again), and sexuality, otherness (the title story, ‘Presumido’, ‘Compromisos’). In ‘Susto’, a body is discovered with its head buried in dirt “like a goddamn ostrich”; in ‘The Reason Is Because’, a baby is dangled, briefly and terrifyingly, over an open landing. The title story, with its exploration of grief, is magnified and complicated by the connected, final story, ‘What Kind of Fool Am I?’. ‘Fieldwork’, in which a man watches his father in physical therapy, bridges many of these ideas in the murky assertion that “No place is the end if you don’t want it to be. If you work hard, you can leave.” The briefest instances are haunting, a car “driven away slowly, slowly, and on out past the edge of his little hand and out of their lives forever”, a man realising “it would be hard to be surrounded by so much wrong without, finally, having to say something about it.” Muñoz has written stories rare in their daring, their will to look and their ability to affect.

[Karina Jones]

3.5/5 While none of these individual stories reached 5 stars for me (the final one was the closest at 4.5), I’m obsessed with the way they all wove together to reveal themes in the collection. The main two themes I picked up on were communication and representation.
Throughout all of these stories, communication was portrayed in interesting ways, with characters often understanding each other without sharing words. The theme largely served to demonstrate how understandings can occur between people, even without words, due to shared histories and circumstances like immigration and being forced to become responsible from a young age. Of course the use of Spanish also played into this.
“Representation” is a word thrown around a lot in literary spaces and media in general. And while there very much is the most common kind of representation in this book, as it involves characters of color, queer characters, etc., I mostly mean that the stories of people who are often quickly judged or neglected are told. What’s the truth behind a man who caused his family to fall apart by leaving his wife? We have heard, and heard here, the tragic stories of men who died in the AIDs epidemic, but what about his sister who tried for her entire young life to keep him safe? How often do we consider that the teenage mom is still struggling with the emotions of every teenager, jealous that the boy she likes is spending time with another girl? This idea is really tied together with the story “Susto,” which was a favorite of mine.
Overall, as I said, the collection as a whole is great, but no one story shone enough for me to want to revisit them often.