A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian Marina Lewycka

Two feuding sisters join forces against their aged father's glamorous, gold-digging new girlfriend in Marina Lewycka’s hilarious debut novel.Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must set aside a lifetime of feuding to save their émigré 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. But the sisters' campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets, uncovers 50 years of Europe's darkest history and sends them back to roots they'd much rather forget..."This novel of ruts and progress, ease and horror, assumption and suspicion, yields a golden harvest of family truths." - The Daily Telegraph"Lewycka is a natural writer, a humorist with a light touch who draws the reader in to a family feud that is utterly funny but also stricken with plaintive sadness over the effects of war and inequity on human relationships. Nothing preachy here, just a boisterous meditation on the need to reconcile old and new Ukraine." - The San Francisco ChronicleMarina Lewycka was born in a refugee camp in Kiel in Germany to Ukrainian parents but was brought up in England. This insider-outsider status is evident in her books and she has said that some of the language in A Brief History - which started as a memoir of her mother’s life before veering into comic fiction - is a literal translation of Ukrainian speech. The novel was rejected by 36 times before it found a publisher: Lewycka was 58 when it finally saw the light of day. SUMMARY: An amusing, astonishing debut . . . about how a family learns to let go of the past and live and love in the present. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution With this wise, tender, and deeply funny novel, Marina Lewycka takes her place alongside Zadie Smith and Monica Ali as a writer who can capture the unchanging verities of family. When an elderly and newly widowed Ukrainian immigrant announces his intention to remarry, his daughters must set aside their longtime feud to thwart him. For their fathers intended is a voluptuous old-country gold digger with a proclivity for green satin underwear and an appetite for the good life of the West. As the hostilities mount and family secrets spill out, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian combines sex, bitchiness, wit, and genuine warmth in its celebration of the pleasure of growing old disgracefully. A charming comedy of eros... A ride that, despite the bumps and curves in the road, never feels anything less than jaunty. Los Angeles Times Lewycka is a writer with a fundamentally optimistic vision of the future and a healthy curiosity about the past. Chicago Tribune Charming, poignantly funny. The Washington Post Book World For years, Nadezhda and Vera, two Ukrainian sisters, raised in England by their refugee parents, have had as little as possible to do with each other - and they have their reasons. But now they find they'd better learn how to get along, because since their mother's death their aging father has been sliding into his second childhood, and an alarming new woman has just entered his life. Valentina, a bosomy young synthetic blonde from the Ukraine, seems to think their father is much richer than he is, and she is keen that he leave this world with as little money to his name as possible 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. Putting aside a lifetime of rivalry when they learn that their recently widowed father is planning to remarry, sisters Vera and Nadezhda find themselves outmaneuvered by their father's scheming fiancée