A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is set in Peterborough, where 84-year old Ukranian immigrant Nikolai Mayevskyj announces to his daughters that he's in love and will remarry. The object of his affection is Valentina, a 36-year old old Ukranian woman with a visa about to expire and a pair of marvelous breasts. She's determined to use Nikolai to achieve the Western lifestyle she's assured she deserves, and he's willing to let her while he works on his book about the history of tractors.

        Meanwhile, his daughters, although markedly different in outlook and lifetime rivals, band together to thwart Valentina's ambitions. Valentina's turns their family home inside out, digging up old family secrets in the process. It's a battle of wills with all the participants shaped by their own pasts through recent Eastern European history.

        Marina Lewycka's novel is a comic look at family bonds and Western lifestyles and has received mostly positive reviews. The Telegraph says, "Lots more happens but the plot is really a vehicle for social satire, some good jokes and an overdose of slapstick. It adds up to a clever, touching story."

The following is an excerpt from the book A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

One Two phone calls and a funeral

Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blond Ukrainian divorcée. 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 up the backside.

It all started with a phone call.

My father's voice, quavery with excitement, crackles down the line.

"Good news, Nadezhda. I'm getting married!"

I remember the rush of blood to my head. Please let it be a joke! Oh, he's gone bonkers! Oh, you foolish old man! But I don't say any of those things.

"Oh, that's nice, Pappa," I say.

"Yes, yes. She is coming with her son from Ukraina. Ternopil in Ukraina."

Ukraina. He sighs, breathing in the remembered scent of mown hay and cherry blossoms. But I catch the distinct synthetic whiff of New Russia.

Her name is Valentina, he tells me. But she is more like Venus. "Botticelli's Venus rising from waves. Golden hair. Charming eyes. Superior breasts. When you see her you will understand."

The grown-up me is indulgent. How sweet, this last late flowering of love. The daughter me is outraged. The traitor! The randy old beast! And our mother barely two years dead. I am angry and curious. I can't wait to see her, this woman who is usurping my mother.

"She sounds gorgeous. When can I meet her?"

"After marriage you can meet."

"I think it might be better if we could meet her first, don't you?"

"Why you want to meet? You not marrying her." (He knows something's not quite right, but he thinks he can get away with it.)

"But Pappa, have you really thought this through? It seems very sudden. I mean, she must be a lot younger than you."

I modulate my voice carefully, to conceal any signs of disapproval, like a worldly-wise adult dealing with a love-struck adolescent.

"Thirty-six. She's thirty-six and I'm eighty-four. So what?" (He pronounces it vat.) There is a snap in his voice. He has anticipated this question.

"Well, it's quite an age difference . . ."

"Nadezhda, I never thought you would be so bourgeois." (He puts the emphasis on the last syllable -- wah!)

"No, no." He has me on the defensive. "It's just that . . . there could be problems."

There will be no problems, says Pappa. He has anticipated all problems. He has known her for three months.

Excerpted from A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, by Marina Lewycka. Reprinted by arrangement with The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. Copyright © Marina Lewycka, 2005.
 

Published by Penguin Books; March 2006;$14.00US/$20.00CAN; 0-14-303674-2
Copyright © 2005 Marina Lewycka