The Consequences
Published in 2022, The Consequences is Manuel Munoz's first story collection in over a decade and a return to the Central Valley of California where he was raised. The ten stories are set largely in the 1980s and follow Mexican American characters around the farm towns of Fresno and Tulare counties as they reckon with marriage, migration, queerness, illness, and the slow erosion of small place economies. A wife waits for a husband who has gone to Texas with another woman. A young man returns home as AIDS reshapes a community that has no language for it. Mothers, sisters, and farmworkers move through choices that will resonate for the rest of their lives. Munoz writes in spare, restrained prose that recalls William Trevor and Andre Dubus, and the collection won the 2023 Story Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
What you might want to know about The Consequences
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Manuel Munoz's story collection about Mexican American lives in California's Central Valley in the 1980s.
It is a collection of linked short stories sharing a Central California setting and a recurring set of concerns.
Yes, it won The Story Prize in 2023 and was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.
The Consequences was written by Manuel Munoz.
The Consequences is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.