Manuel Muñoz

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Biographical note:  Manuel Muñoz was born and raised in Dinuba, California. He graduated from Harvard University and received his MFA in creative writing from Cornell University. He is the author of a previous story collection, Zigzagger, and the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and a PEN/O. Henry Award. He is Assistant Professor of creative writing at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

BIC Basic

EAN13:  9781844714742
ISBN:  9781844714742
Author:  Manuel Muñoz
Title:  The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue
Series:  Salt Modern Fiction
Product class:  BC
Language:  eng
Audience:  General/trade
BIC subject category:  FNB
Publisher:  Salt Publishing
Pub date:  01-Nov-09
Extent:  192pp
Height:  216 mm
Width:  140 mm
Thickness:  14 mm
Weight:  288 gms
Supplier:   Gardners Books
Supplier:   Ingram Book Group
Supplier:   Inbooks (James Bennett)
Availability:  NP
Price:  GBP 8.99
Price:  USD 14.95
Rights:  World

Short description/annotation:  Manuel Muñoz's dazzling second collection finds the author returning, once again, to the small towns of California's Central Valley. Set in a neighborhood with characters whose lives often intersect with each other, The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue offers ten stories about a wide range of lives: a mother coping with a mortally injured son after his motorcycle accident; a single father returning from San Francisco and attempting a reconciliation with an estranged sister; a young woman trying to provide safe haven to her cousin fleeing a vicious boyfriend; and a teenager who sees himself in the trials of the town's most-gossiped-about resident. How these characters cross paths reveal a neighborhood shaped by misunderstandings and long-held secrets, and show how a community can be both embracing and unforgiving, revealing a truth about the nature of home: you always live with its history.

Main description:  Manuel Muñoz's dazzling second collection finds the author returning, once again, to the small towns of California's Central Valley. Set in a neighborhood with characters whose lives often intersect with each other, The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue offers ten stories about a wide range of lives: a mother coping with a mortally injured son after his motorcycle accident; a single father returning from San Francisco and attempting a reconciliation with an estranged sister; a young woman trying to provide safe haven to her cousin fleeing a vicious boyfriend; and a teenager who sees himself in the trials of the town's most-gossiped-about resident. How these characters cross paths reveal a neighborhood shaped by misunderstandings and long-held secrets, and show how a community can be both embracing and unforgiving, revealing a truth about the nature of home: you always live with its history.

Stories from The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue were previously published in Epoch, Glimmer Train (marking Manuel's third appearance in this literary journal), Rush Hour, and Swink. His work has appeared in many other journals, including The Massachusetts Review, The Colorado Review, Boston Review, and Puerto del Sol, and has also been broadcast on National Public Radio's Selected Shorts.

Table of contents:
Lindo y Querido
Bring Brang Brung
The Heart Finds Its Own Conclusion
When You Come Into Your Kingdom
Tell Him About Brother John
Ida y Vuelta
Senor X
The Comeuppance Of Lupe Rivera
The Good Brother
The Faith Healer Of Olive Avenue

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Excerpt from book:  

From: Señor X

Where we grew up, Kyle and me, you travel along Avenue 416 for fifteen miles over to Selma, a road straight west to get to Highway 99, and just before you get to the on-ramp there’s a gas station with its towering lighted sign. I’ve driven there a million times, all those years I’ve lived here in the Valley, and it’s hard to forget its fluorescent gleam, the hard edge the station light gives to the grape vineyards all around. Months and months after he robbed the men’s clothing store, we didn’t hang out, the news about the robbery all over the front page of the paper, but nothing ever happening to Kyle. All the stuff was at my house, but no one ever came knocking. When the news got old, we started drinking out in the orchards again, and that night, I thought the plan was to go out over to Caruthers and maybe smoke some pot. At the gas station, I sat in the car waiting while Kyle went in there, his baseball cap lowered. I didn’t know if he was going to steal the beer or just pay for it, but when I saw him walk up to the counter with a case of beer, he pulled that gun on the clerk, a Mexican kid, so young, his hands straight up and confused. When had Kyle hid the gun? How had it happened, this kid lowering one hand to open the register, Kyle in his mad frenzy to yank out as much money as he could? My heart raced, hearing the slow rumble of an approaching diesel truck, just off a long haul on 99. I could see the diesel truck approaching with its barrel of a trailer like a shiny silver bullet—it was easy to think that, hearing what I heard, my head jerking back to the station in horror, in disbelief, and Kyle racing back to the car, yelling, “Go, go, go!” He lugged the beer like a treasure chest, the plastic bag of money in his other hand. I did not see the Mexican kid go down, but I heard what collapsed him. And I knew even then that all of Kyle’s want for change and escape and excitement was impossible to reach. I knew even before Kyle counted the money that there wasn’t enough in the bag.

We were eighteen and we were sloppy. “Don’t go on the highway,” he told me, and so we headed back to town. My hands were shaking and so were my knees: I felt I was tapping on the gas pedal because I was shaking so much. “Don’t speed,” he told me, my eyes on the rearview mirror. We drove back to his house and I waited for him to go inside. The front door was open to let in the night air, and I could see the shape of his mother sitting in her armchair, watching television, but Kyle only came and went, his mother never making a move. A paper bag of clothes and a clutch of CDs; the plastic bag of money on the floorboard and the gun tucked under the seat. Why Las Vegas seemed like a good idea, I don’t remember, but we pulled down Gold Street and out of our neighborhood very slowly. I looked at my house as if I’d never see it again. We took the back roads heading south, through Visalia, Tulare, then the scattering of little towns before Bakersfield and it was remarkably easy. There was never a cop car; there was a strange easing of my panic. We headed east up into the Tehachapi Mountains on Highway 65 and the darkness, leaving the Valley behind, and even in the night I knew my life had changed without my wanting it to. The fruit trees were gone, the vineyards. In the dark was the dry rustle of the mountains at the burst of fire season. In the dark was the edge of the desert and its frightening jaws, the long road leading to Las Vegas, the headlights, the ominous signs pointing to Edwards Air Force Base, both of us quiet the whole way. The hours were going by and at home, I knew my mother would never notice. We pretended our silence was caused by the stark awe of the land stretching on all sides, how it wanted to swallow us in Kyle’s beat-up Mercury. But that wasn’t it. He had done something beyond terrible and we knew it.

Previous review quote:  Moving and tender. . . Muñoz writes elegantly and sympathetically. . .a softly glowing, melancholy beauty that. . .makes [his stories] universal.

New York Times Book Review

Previous review quote:  Ten superbly grounded stories. . . Fine storytelling that achieves universality while remaining rooted in a particular time and place.

Kirkus Review (starred)

Previous review quote:  Muñoz writes with restraint and without pretension, giving fearless voice to personal tragedies.

Publishers Weekly