By Marina  Lweycka

Nominated for the Man Booker Prize, this remarkable first novel concerns the daughters of Nikolai Mayevskyj, an elderly Ukrainian immigrant living in England. Nadezhda and her older sister Vera are not on speaking terms, but the impending marriage of their recently widowed father to a thirty -six year old Ukrainian bimbo brings them together.

When not mooning over his sweetheart, Nikolai is writing a history of the tractor, pining for an Ukraina that he left sixty years ago, and arguing politics with left leaning Nadezhda.

The bimbo is unsurprisingly awful and has the tenaciousness of the desperate. Disengaging her from their father is not as easy as the girls anticipated, and their frantic efforts take on a decidedly comedic tone. In between acts of burglary and writing anonymous letters to the Home Office, Nadezhda and Vera develop a wary partnership which leads some surprising revelations about the family’s experiences during the Second World War.

This is a truly original story, poignant and funny, of the immigrant experience, sibling rivalry, and the elusiveness of family memories.

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