Both uproariously funny and scalpel-sharp on the Eastern European immigrant experience, Lewycka’s astonishingly assured debut finds two bickering sisters come together to save their smitten father from a gold-digging Ukrainian divorcee. Sly, subversive and wickedly amusing, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is a delight from start to finish.
'Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. 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 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 of Western wealth.
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780241961827
Number of pages: 336
Weight: 242 g
Dimensions: 200 x 130 x 20 mm
More than just a jolly romp with political undertones is the way it captures the peculiar flavour of Eastern European immigrant life ... a very rich mixture indeed, as well as very enjoyable reading The Times A delightful first novel ... an understanding of history, a profundity, and yet a lightness of touch, that are a joy ... funny, touching and completely convincing The Spectator
After hearing so much hype about this book being hysterically funny I was very disappointed to find that it was all about bullying and humiliating an ageing man. While reading it I couldn't believe that anyone... More
I bought this book after reading reviews in other places, and enjoyed it. It's not in my top 10 list, but it was enjoyable and entertaining.
I enjoyed this book.
It is a first person account of a woman who along with her sister deals with their aged father who nearly gets conned out of his house by a scheming gold digger. This allows for examination of...
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