Let Us Look Elsewhere: Excerpt

June 27, 2021 | By Women Writers Women Books | Reply More

Mona Dash is the author of A Roll of the Dice : a story of loss, love and genetics (Linen Press, 2019) winner of the Eyelands International Book Awards for memoir, and very recently, Let Us Look Elsewhere (Dahlia Books, June ’21).Her other published books are A Certain Way, Untamed Heart, and Dawn-drops.

Her work has been listed in leading competitions such as Novel London 20, SI Leeds Literary award, Fish, Bath, Bristol, Leicester Writes and Asian Writer, and widely published in international journals and more than twenty anthologies. A graduate in Telecoms Engineering, she holds an MBA, and also a Masters in Creative Writing (with distinction) She works in a global tech company and lives in London. www.monadash.net

Inspiration behind this collection:

This is a collection of fourteen stories written over the past five or six years. Several of these were listed in competitions or published in a journal. It was only when an older and different version of this collection was shortlisted in the SI Leeds Literary Award in 2018. It was the only short story collection to make the final shortlist of six books, so that is when I realised I had a potential book!

I wrote each story as it ‘arrived’ in my head, so the influences and inspirations are varied. The settings are in turn exotic, remote and also familiar; and whether it is in the Arctic region, or a little village in Odisha, there are two are two threads through the heart of the collection. Firstly human frailty and disconnect, since the characters are not complete or content. They are each on a quest, whether it is to find love or self-fulfilment. The second is a sense of place, and how our surroundings often influence and make a difference to our own ideologies and personality constructs.

Then there are two themes stitching the stories. Multiple, diverse identity is very important to me as a person, and as a writer. The travesty of belonging and feeling like an outsider, can happen to anyone. Many of the stories explore situational belonging and identity.

Desire, passion, sensuality, especially of women, is the second theme throughout the collection. The women in my stories are trying to find themselves, often through love, intimacy, they are often rebelling against the spaces they have been forced into. An exploration into the complexity of a woman’s mind and her often ambiguous secret world is in several of the stories.

Let Us Look Elsewhere is available from Dahlia Books with free postage in the UK. E-book to be published in December ‘21

http://dahlia-books.kong365.com/en-gb/collections/our-books/products/let-us-look-elsewhere

LET US LOOK ELSEWHERE

A young boy refuses to ferry his boat. A woman orders a British accent to fit in. A lover sends messages into the void. Disconnection and desire go hand in hand in this powerful collection. From the bustling streets of Mumbai to the glitz and glamour of Vegas, and the everyday streets of London, these beautifully observed stories explore human frailties and triumph.

Praise for Let Us Look Elsewhere

A wonderful, richly rendered and triumphant collection. Highly recommended

~ Irenosen Okojie, Author, MBE

It was a pleasure to read Mona’s writing for the first time, when she was shortlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize, and to introduce her work to the world. She is a writer of rare bravery, putting forward a manifesto against the tropes and delighting in subverting expectations

~ Roopa Farooki, Author

Mona Dash has produced an unflinching collection of short stories, demonstrating that she is a fearless writer, unafraid to reveal her characters flaws and extremes as they search for a sense of identity and belonging.

~ Joe Melia, Bristol Short Story Prize Co-ordinator

These atmospheric stories travel across continents and time, offering surprising and intriguing incursions into the disparate moments of solitary lives.

~ Amanthi Harris, Author

The powerful collection of short stories by Mona Dash, Let us Look Elsewhere literally takes us across the world: to Europe, the US, India, Britain and also into the lives of a wide range of very different characters, some of whom reflect darker elements of human behaviour and experience.

Susheila Nasta, 2018 SI Leeds Literary Prize chair of judges

An excerpt from one of the stories, ‘Secrets’

Secrets

You like the sound of gravel beneath your feet. Crunch, crunch like Toby’s cereal, crispy cornflakes in frothy milk. You are walking up the driveway. The house is set right back, hidden behind trees.

‘Is this the right address? You’re not confusing them, are you?’ Michael asks in his usual manner. He laughs and adds, ‘I mean, that would be so you.’

You don’t react. Instead you point at the sign and say, ‘I’m sure it’s this one. Garden cottage.’ The sign is hanging askew and he impatiently reaches out and straightens it.

‘Doesn’t look like anyone’s in.’ He mutters.

‘The agent said she would be here. Toby, now come on, straighten up!’ Toby is hanging on your arm and you almost trip on him. The rain has been steady all morning and your heels sink into the squelch. Not practical attire for this weather but since when have you been practical?

Someone steps out from a side door.

‘Hello, Mrs Smith? I am Debbie from the agency.’ An elegant woman, dressed in a smart black skirt suit, a few wrinkles around her eyes.

‘Hi, Debbie! Lovely house,’ you say, even though you haven’t seen any of it yet.

‘The owners are away so I will be taking you around. It’s lovely, a bit quirky.’

‘Quirky is good,’ you smile enthusiastically, the way you are meant to on house viewings.

‘Young man, do you want to go in?’ she asks Toby.

Toby lowers his chin down and doesn’t look up. He doesn’t want to look at new houses even though you have explained that a larger garden would be nice for him. Still, Toby doesn’t want a change. Michael wants to invest in a bigger property and rent out the semi-detached you are living in now. And you, well, you want something different. You want rooms to rearrange, to become something more. You want alcoves and nooks. Instead of the smooth neutral walls, you want bumpy recesses. You want to hang threads of garlic and pans from a trellis in a large stone-floored kitchen. You want to bake cakes, stir soups, in a kitchen with warm burnt-orange walls. You want to dream, to morph into someone else.

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