A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian- Marina Lewycka

"Mad and hilarious" Daily Telegraph.

"Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukranian divorcee. He was 84, and she was 36. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside."
Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must put aside a lifetime of feuding to save their emigre engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she will stop at nothing in her pursuit for Western wealth.

This book was laugh out loud funny and it's characters an absolute triumph! The use of the language spoken by many of the characters-half English, half Ukranian- really brought them to life. Lewycka brings humour to the struggles of immigration, but really captures a sense of these difficulties without seeming flippant. For me, some of the less likable characters, Vera, and Valentina for example are made vulnerable and human leading you to empathise with their take on the world. Despite the humour of the book, there is a darker theme, the past adversities suffered by the older generations. An evocative portrait of early twentieth century Soviet Union emerges, and is an education and a delight to read. This novel was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Bollinger Everyman Prize for Comic Fiction.
Fantastic.

"Thought provoking, uproariously funny, a comic feast." Economist