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His two feuding daughters realize they must unite to free their father from the clutches of Valentina, a Ukrainian bombshell and “boil-in-the-bag cook” with “superior” breasts and a “genius” son, whose demands on the elderly man only begin at marriage. Moving back in time to war-time Europe, we’re given insights into what faced inhabitants of occupied countries; the horror of camps, of having loved ones torn from your side and the constant fear that becomes a part of life – fear of loss, of dreams unfulfilled and so much more. Although it is set within a Ukrainian British family and it takes hilarious advantage of this fact, it reveals a lot about families generally. Think about some of the more serious scenes and stories in the book, those that are tragic or frightening in nature.
As a Pole I found the idea of hoisting a cooker onto a roof rack of a Rolls-Royce hilarious while realistic, after all I have myself been an enthusiastic participant in the process of loading an old Siemens washing machine onto a sailing yacht in Kiel, Germany circa 1984! Each of the characters indulges in uninhibited bad behavior—and bad language—and that’s what I most enjoyed writing about. Along the way the two sisters confront differences that shadowed them have throughout their childhoods and Nadia learns for the first time of the wartime events that contributed to the very different worldviews she and her sister hold, finally realizing the privilege she has enjoyed as her parents’ “precious peacetime baby. More than just a jolly romp with political undertones is the way it captures the peculiar flavour of Eastern European immigrant life .The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. To sum it up: this isn't a bad book - it's certainly readable and can be entertaining - but it's not what I'd categorize as Booker material, so I'm not surprised that it didn't make the shortlist.
Now, brought together by their father’s apparent second adolescence, they conspire to oust the newcomer and preserve the sanctity of their mother’s home and garden. This book is an entertaining read attempting a number of different messages and to a large extent pulling them off.
It was first performed at Hull Truck Theatre from the 22nd September to 14th October 2017 as part of the celebrations for Hull’s year as City of Culture. Yes a seemingly crazy juxtaposition of themes blend smoothly into an entertaining tale, involving love and loyalty, resilience, disappointment, sibling rivalry, self image, status anxiety, national identify and the horrors of war.
Like Nadia, we’re drawn into her father’s alternating states of misery and jubilation as his young, mercenary wife, both abuses and thrills him with her flirtatious and calculating ways. As a work of literature 'Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian' suffers from what is perhaps a typical fault of many at least partially autobiographical debut: too much crammed into little space, too many stories in one and not many of them very well explored.We had been discussing "the 100 year old man that stepped out the window and ran away" as we had both read it and loved it.
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