Marina Lewycka, A Short History Of Tractors in Ukranian

A Short History Of Tractors in Ukranian by Marina Lewycka is a good book, and I will surely recommend this to others as well.

I would recommend this book for anyone looking for something a bit different, that explores family dynamics in a funny way.

A Short History of Tractors in the Ukrainian

Marina Lewycka

Penguin, Mar 2006, $14.00

ISBN: 0143036742

In England an eighty-four years old Ukrainian immigrant Kolya Mayevska has been a widower for two years. Though he appreciates poetry and tractors, he is lonely until he meets thirty-six years old big boobed Valentina, also from the Ukraine, at the Ukrainian Social Club. Valentina falls for the elderly man because she needs him to obtain papers so that she and her teenage son, whose father she divorced, can remain in England; his money is a needed bonus.

His two daughters, big sister Vera and little sister Nadezhda, who have always feuded over saving the world, but stopped talking after their mom Ludmilla died two years ago, are stunned by the usurper, who is younger than both of them and has boobs bigger than theirs combined. They immediately realize that the gold digger Valentina loves western luxuries a lot more than their dad. They agree they must stop the invader, but are not sure how as their dad spends his retirement pension on helping the siren settle in England. Especially galling is when he pays for her to have cosmetic surgery. Still they cannot stop the marriage from happening in spite of lawyers, immigration, and pregnancy.

This is an interesting family drama that is told by Nadezhda so the audience obtains only her perspective of what happened to her dad. The story line is intriguing as she and her sibling try everything to stop what they see is a disaster for their father in this May-December relationship. The frustration of failure adds poignancy to the story line though flashbacks to the death of their maternal grandmother in the Ukraine seem unnecessarily heavy-handed. Still overall this is an enjoyable look at an outsider invading a dysfunctional family causing enemy combatants to become close allies.

Harriet Klausner