Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #221004 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 239 pages

Amazon.com
In a series of ten interconnected stories, Manuel Muñoz illuminates the lives of several Mexican-American families in the same neighborhood in Central California. The title story comes last in the collection, and is perhaps the most poignant. Twenty-one-year-old Emilio works the graveyard shift in a paper mill. One night, after a few shots of whiskey and a few hits of marijuana, he goes back to the forklift to move a pallet of paper, loses control and drops the whole load on himself. He is crippled for life, living at home with his father, who is at the end of his rope with caring for him. He puts Emilio in the car and drives him to a faith healer in Fresno. After giving her his life savings, she gives Emilio a tiny baby food jar of cream and tells him to rub it on his legs. "He watched as his father smoothed the crema onto his thin legs... not being thrifty with it as they had been with everything else in life, rubbing hard with belief..."

In these stories, sometimes belief is all there is: belief that a better job will come, that the loved one will return love, that a surly teenager headed for trouble will straighten out, that a gay son will change--faith and hope are staples of these people's lives. For the most part, they are disappointed. Most of the stories are of single mothers or fathers trying to raise families under the shadow of immigration and language problems and too little money. The subtext of many of the stories is homosexuality, not a lifestyle embraced by the Mexican-American community.

Muñoz writes with a sure hand of the way these people cross paths in unpredictable ways, in situations where there is never enough love or forgiveness. These are hard stories, sad and beautiful in their truth and clarity. --Valerie Ryan

From Publishers Weekly
Munoz delivers another book of short stories colored by the heat of California's Central Valley and shot through with despair and a hint of magic. Following his debut, Zigzagger, these 10 interconnected tales are filled with characters living lives of isolation, alienated both from one another and the mainstream culture. Much of what happens is waiting and watching: a young gay man envies the glamorous life of his neighbor in "The Comeuppance of Lupe Rivera"; a young woman waits for her runaway cousin at a bus station in "The Heart Finds Its Own Conclusion"; and a mother waits for her only son's death after a motorcycle crash in "Lindo y Querido." The title story sees a young man robbed of his strength and promise when an industrial accident leaves him in the care of his overburdened father, whose hope lies in the promise of a faith healer. Munoz writes with restraint and without pretension, giving fearless voice to personal tragedies. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School—With this collection of related stories, Muñoz invites comparison with Gary Soto and Francisco Jiménez. The stories take place in and around Fresno, CA, showing the lives of those who stay there, those who leave, and those who return. Most of the main characters are young men, some recently out of high school, who are confronting their futures, and their loves. Although these stories deal with grief and loss, they are neither maudlin nor exuberantly uplifting, but quiet and memorable, the characters taking up residence in readers' minds. Both the title story and "Lindo y Querido" deal with a severely injured young man; in one case the father seeks out a curandera (faith healer) for his wheelchair-bound and despondent son; in the other, a mother waits with resignation for her son to die after a motorcycle crash. In "Ida y Vuelta," Joaquin comes home for his father's last days, bringing his new lover, Robbie, with him to stay with Roberto, the man he left after 15 years. Themes exploring the relationship between parent and adult child and trying to define oneself will appeal to teen readers, and certainly those who are drawn to the stories of Francisco Jiménez in The Circuit (Univ. of New Mexico, 1997) and in Breaking Through (Houghton, 2001) will appreciate these contemporary tales of Mexican-American life.—Teri Titus, San Mateo County Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Absorbing and Resonant Tales of Neighbors and Alienation
These ten superbly written stories are set within the homes of "Gold Street" and the Mexican-American neighborhood of Central California, a community that both embraces and shuns its cultural past and fellow residents. Grief, loss, alienation, abandonment and accidents haunt all of these stories and characters -- husbands leave wives and families, women fight with their neighbors or don't speak to them at all for years and years, young men struggle with their sexuality and only find their future within their pasts. The opening story, "Lindo y Querido," is a heartbreaking account of an immigrant maid, aged and isolated from her neighbors, who uncovers her teenaged son's secrets while cleaning his bedroom after his death from a motorcycle accident. Many of these stories deal with familiar gay themes in extraordinary ways. In "Bring Brang Brung," one of the collection's finest tales, a gay widower and a reluctant father, returns to the neighborhood with his young adopted son and finds an unexpected ally in his sister. In "Ida y Vuelta," a man returns home for a short visit when his father becomes ill, bringing along his new lover while staying with the man he left after a fifteen-year relationship. In "The Comeuppance of Lupe Rivera," a young gay man is drawn into to the glamour and tragedy of his scandalous neighbor. Munoz's prose is controlled and poignant and I seldom wanted to step away from any of these stories -- the author's characters' struggles resonate because these events could happen in any neighborhood. My favorite story, "Tell Him About Brother John," finds two men, friends from teens, reunited, with one man offering up a confession of his life, while the other choses to continue to keep his life secret.

READ THIS BOOK!
The stories in this collection are soul-wrenching. Munoz does an excellent job of putting you directly into the mind and heart of his many and varied characters. You find yourself identifying with people whom you might never meet, sympathetic characters even though (or maybe because) they are flawed. I am so glad I got to read this book, and I hope Mr. Munoz produces another one soon.

superb stories
These stories are poignant and extremely well-written. They are brilliantly interrelated and sequenced to heighten emotional impact. I don't read quite enough to offer an authoritative opinion, but outside of acknowledged masters of the form (Cheever, Updike, Munro etc.) I can't recall a more consistent and satisfying collection.