Book of the Month - By Kathleen Thorne

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
By Marina Lewycka

Published by Viking
Cost €19.25

Don't be put off by the title of this book–it's not about the history of tractors in the Ukraine. Rather, Nikolai, a character in the novel, is attempting to write on the subject. He is an elderly widower who grew up in the Ukraine, and is a retired engineer. As a younger man he migrated to England with his wife and two daughters and has lived there for a long number of years.

The problem is, he has struck up a relationship with Valentina–a voluptuous blonde from his homeland. She is years younger, but he intends to marry her. He describes her as 'Botticelli's Venus rising from the waves. Golden hair. Charming eyes. Superior breasts.' It is obvious from the start that the blonde is a gold-digger. She wants 'to make a new life for herself and her son in the west, a good life, with good job, good money, nice car–absolutely no Lada, no Skoda–good education for her son – must be Oxford Cambridge, nothing less'.

He communicates all this in glowing terms to Nadia, one of his two daughters. Imagine Nadia's consternation when he tells her that this woman 'sits on his lap and allows him to fondle her breasts.' Nikolai has it all worked out and the two daughters, who have not spoken to each other for two years–since the death of their mother– are now thrown into confusion and have to work together to save their father from himself and from this awful woman who has burst into their lives

Essentially this is an amusing book. The father marries his Ukrainian blonde despite his daughters' protestations and thereby lands himself in a series of predictable tragic/comic situations.

There is the incident of the 'roller'. He rings Nadia to tell her that there is a 'roller sitting in the garden on the lawn'. The Roller turns out to be a Rolls-Royce. "Valentina has achieved the apogee of her dreams of life in the West–she is the owner of a Rolls- Royce.' The fact that its suspension is gone, and that it sits on the lawn 'like a swan with a broken wing,' is of no consequence. Nadia's father has spent £500 for a heap of junk–useful only as an abode for the family cat. Like so many episodes in this novel, it is sad, but very funny in the reporting of it.

This is a book about tensions within a family, culture differences and how people use and abuse each other. It is also about vulnerability and the survival of the human spirit.

By virtue of the author's light, comic touch, this book is a pageturner. Nevertheless it is also an astute commentary on human nature and on some of the difficulties facing a multicultural European community. It is altogether a tour de force for a first-time novelist.

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