'Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamourous 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 up the backside.' Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must put aside a lifetime of feuding to save their emigre engineer father from 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 roots they'd much rather forget...

Accolades

Winner of Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize 2006.
Winner of British Book Awards: Newcomer of the Year 2005.
Winner of Saga Award for Wit 2005.
Shortlisted for Orange Prize 2005.

Author Biography

Marina Lewycka lives in Sheffield with her husband and daughter, and teaches at Sheffield Hallam University.