The Indigo Press signs 'exquisite' selection of stories from Muñoz

The Indigo Press has snapped up an "exquisite" selection of stories from Manuel Muñoz.

Susie Nicklin, commissioning editor, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to The Consequences from Abner Stein in association with Stuart Bernstein. It will publish on 20th October 2022.

The stories are mostly set in the 1980s in the small towns that surround Fresno. The publisher said: "With an unflinching hand, Muñoz depicts the Mexican and Mexican American farmworkers who put food on 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. 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."

Nicklin said: "Crops that need picking. An illiberal regime which depends on economic migrants but which deports them or leaves them to die unnamed in the fields. Women caught between domestic drudgery and violence. A newcomer excluded from the ‘smug marrieds’. A repressed father watching his son acknowledge his commitments; other sons losing fathers and lovers to illness and exhaustion. Not Britain in the 2020s, but California in the 1970s and 80s. Manuel Muñoz deploys consummate artistry and empathy in these stunning stories which include moments of joy and tenderness. I’m proud that The Indigo Press will be bringing them to British readers."

Muñoz added: "Only a few hours from the crackling energy of Los Angeles and Hollywood is California’s Central Valley, where I was born and raised. For a long time, the allure of movie magic made me lose sight of the astonishing stories of home, how the Valley has always been a crossroads for both the ruthless and the tenderhearted, the broken and the resilient. But to get the true story of any country, the struggles and triumphs of its smaller cities and regions can show much more of its intimate universality. In so many places, large and small, the world over— everywhere, truly—there are stories. I’m deeply grateful that The Indigo Press will be bringing mine across the ocean."