Manuel Muñoz is the author of two collections of short stories, Zigzagger (2003) and The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue (2007), which was shortlisted for the 2007 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. His first novel, What You See in the Dark, was published in 2011. Manuel is the recipient of a Whiting Award in Fiction and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. He received a 2009 PEN/O. Henry Prize for his story, “Tell Him About Brother John,” a second in 2015 for “The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.,” and a third in 2017 for “The Reason is Because.” He served as a juror for the 2011 PEN/O. Henry Prize and as a judge for the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Awards. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Southern Review, Glimmer Train, Epoch, and Boston Review, and has aired on National Public Radio’s Selected Shorts. A native of Dinuba, California, Muñoz serves as the director of the creative writing program at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
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The Faith Healer of Olive AvenueStoriesFrom"The Heart Finds Its Own Conclusion"
“He has something of mine,” the man said.
With that, she turned to look at him. “Who are you?” she finally demanded. “Sergio called me to come pick him up, not you.”
“You don’t know me?” His voice pitched higher, edging toward frustration, maybe anger. “You don’t know who I am?”
“No,” she finally said. “I don’t.”
“He’s got my heart,” the man said, melodramatically holding his hands across his chest, but he sneered a bit when he said it. “He’s got a lot of things I want back.”
Copyright © 2006 by Manuel Muñoz. By permission of Stuart Bernstein Representation for Artists, New York, NY and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. All rights reserved. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express permission is prohibited.
The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue:Stories -
The Faith Healer of Olive AvenueStoriesFrom"Señor X"
I’m lucky: I spent only a year in jail in Avenal, for forgery, paychecks I faked a long time ago. The police were searching for something to charge me with when I got caught in Las Vegas, and all they came up with were those bad checks. I was in Las Vegas, heading east, as far away as I could get from the gas station that I helped rob with this guy I used to know, Kyle, the only white boy on Gold Street. To this day, I don’t know what happened to Kyle.
Copyright © 2006 by Manuel Muñoz. By permission of Stuart Bernstein Representation for Artists, New York, NY and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. All rights reserved. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express permission is prohibited.
The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue:Stories -
The Faith Healer of Olive AvenueStoriesFrom"The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue"
After she counted the money, the woman folded up the bills and reached deep into the black T-shirt to hide the bills in her bra, and then she walked back out to the car. “You rub that crema on you every night, you hear me?” she ordered, and put her hands on Emilio again, as if to feel once more whatever she might have felt before. “Someone put the evil eye on you,” she told him as her hands traveled up the back of his neck and into the fringes of hair on the back of his head, rubbing him as a lover might, looking away from him in concentration, eyes closed. “You have to believe in it for it to go away.”
Copyright © 2006 by Manuel Muñoz. By permission of Stuart Bernstein Representation for Artists, New York, NY and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. All rights reserved. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express permission is prohibited.
The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue:Stories
“An audacious debut novel . . . the book, like its double-entendre title, operates superbly on so many levels: as a sharply detailed portrait of small-town life, as a skillful whodunit and as a meditation on escapism and celebrity.” —The Cleveland Plain Dealer [on What You See in the Dark]
“Moving and tender . . . Muñoz writes elegantly and sympathetically . . . a softly glowing, melancholy beauty that . . .makes [his stories] universal.” —The New York Times Book Review [on The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue]
“Muñoz has created a wholly authentic vision of contemporary California—one that has little to do with coastlines, cities or silicon . . . Muñoz’s Central Valley is a part of California—a part of America—that has yet to see many liberations: gay, women’s, or economic liberation from restrictions imposed for so long on people with brown skin. If his vision is full of despair, so is the reality that his characters must endure; he is much too truthful a writer to present false hope. Zigzagger is a book to read if you want to see another California, one that might be unfamiliar but is home to millions. It heralds the arrival of a gifted and sensitive writer.” —David Ebershoff, Los Angeles Times Book Review
Selected Works
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