Coconut Dreams explores the lives of the Pinto family through
seventeen linked short stories. Starting with a ghost story set in Goa,
India in the 1950s, the collection weaves through various timelines and
perspectives to focus on two children, Aiden and Ally Pinto. These
siblings tackle their adventures in a predominantly white suburb with
innocence, intelligence and a timid foot in two distinct cultures.
In these stories, Derek Mascarenhas takes a fresh look at the world of
the new immigrant and the South Asian experience in Canada, as a
daughter questions her father's love at an IKEA grand opening; an aunt
remembers a safari-gone-wrong in Kenya; an uncle's unrequited love is
confronted at a Goan Association picnic; a boy tests his faith amidst a
school-yard brawl; and a childhood love letter is exchanged during the
building of a backyard deck. Singularly and collectively, these stories
will move the reader with their engaging narratives and authentic
voices.
This charming collection of stories resides between a suburban childhood
in Canada and inherited, often mythic, tales from Goa that belong to the
elders. Characters decide on love with rings lost at sea and soothe
babies with stories of elephants in mountains. The voices in these
stories are from people who seem far away and yet are inside us. Prepare
to be delighted. --Kim Echlin, author of Under the Visible Life
The stories in Derek Mascarenhas's Coconut Dreams remind one of the
high stakes in a child's world, the way that danger looms just
fractionally outside safety. Like all proper enchantments, these
vignettes are dark, light, strange, and vivid such that they delight and
charm in equal portions. --Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, author of All the
Broken Things, Perfecting, and The Nettle Spinner.
In this evocative collection, Derek Mascarenhas takes up the fictional
Pinto family and turns it gently in his hands, revealing new truths--and
new questions--with every shift in point of view. A moving, multifaceted
debut. --Alissa York, author of The Naturalist
