Nominated for the Man Booker Prize
“A charming comedy of eros . . . A ride that, despite the bumps and curves in the road, never feels anything less than jaunty.” —Los Angeles Times
“Charming, poignantly funny.” —The Washington Post Book World
'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 up the backside.'
Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must aside a lifetime of feuding to save their émigré 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 . . .
- ISBN10 0143036742
- ISBN13 9780143036746
- Publish Date 28 March 2006 (first published 3 March 2005)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc
- Imprint Penguin USA
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 304
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780143036746