Book Description
Winner of the Bollinger Everyman Prize for Comic Fiction "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 in the backside. Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must put aside a lifetime of feuding to save the emigre engineer father from the 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 fifty years of Europe's darkest history and sends them back to the roots they'd rather forget...." From the back cover. "Thought provoking, uproariously funny, a comic feast. A riotous oil painting of senility, lust and greed." The Economist
My Review
This is a very light, funny and engaging story and also a good way to learn something about the history of Ukraine and what its people went through. The novel covered the subjects of 'old country' thinking, immigration, family dynamics, many aspects of aging. I did learn a lot about the history of tractors as Nikolai, the father, was writing a book and there were excerpts throughout which were very interesting.The characters are very believable and true to life, some make you want to laugh and others make you want to cry. I highly recommend this novel, which should appeal to just about any reader.
Winner of the Bollinger Everyman Prize for Comic Fiction "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 in the backside. Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must put aside a lifetime of feuding to save the emigre engineer father from the 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 fifty years of Europe's darkest history and sends them back to the roots they'd rather forget...." From the back cover. "Thought provoking, uproariously funny, a comic feast. A riotous oil painting of senility, lust and greed." The Economist
My Review
This is a very light, funny and engaging story and also a good way to learn something about the history of Ukraine and what its people went through. The novel covered the subjects of 'old country' thinking, immigration, family dynamics, many aspects of aging. I did learn a lot about the history of tractors as Nikolai, the father, was writing a book and there were excerpts throughout which were very interesting.The characters are very believable and true to life, some make you want to laugh and others make you want to cry. I highly recommend this novel, which should appeal to just about any reader.
