The back story regarding the Mayevskyj family’s arrival in the UK, having survived internment in a German war camp, also provides much food for thought and is a nice balance to the slapstick comedy and social satire that permeates much of the book. There’s plenty of social and political issues to give the story some gravitas – illegal immigration, spousal abuse and the greed and consumerism of the West to name but a few. Set in the Fenlands of England (more specifically Peterborough), A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is a delightfully comic novel about sibling rivalry, family ties and the secrets we keep.īut there’s a darker edge to this book, too. The pair band together to thwart Valentina’s less than honourable schemes - with mixed results.Īs Valentina bleeds Nikolai dry in pursuit of her much-desired Western lifestyle, the ostrich-like Nikolai concentrates not on reeling her in but in continuing to write his book about the history of tractors (hence this novel’s title). Nikolai’s daughters, the upstanding divorcee Vera and the left-wing sociologist Nadia, put their lifelong differences aside to protect their father from his own stupidity. But when he marries the object of his affections - the delightfully eccentric Valentina, a gold-digging Ukrainian with a pair of over-sized breasts, bottle-blonde hair and a rocket-like mission to obtain a British passport - all hell breaks loose. When 84-year-old British-based Ukrainian widower Nikolai Mayevskyj announces that he is in love with a woman young enough to be his daughter eyebrows are raised. Fiction – paperback Penguin Books 336 pages 2006.
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