Excerpt from Strawberry Fields (Two Caravans) by Marina Lewycka, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Love is like fire," Mother used to say. "A treasure, not a toy." Poor Mother, she is getting very middle-aged. Her mouth would pucker up in a disapproving lipsticky pout when we passed those girls on Kreshchatik wearing skirts that were just a little strip of cloth between their navels and their knickers, laughing with their mouths open as the boys splashed them with beer. Although it is more romantic if a girl saves herself for the one, still there was something unsettling, something knowing about those open-mouthed smiles. What was it they knew and I didn’t? Maybe here in England, away from my mother’s prying eyes, I would be able to find out. Watching the ripple of that miner’s arms as he lifted the pallets of strawberries got me wondering about all that again. Just wondering, Mother. Nothing more.

There is a pull-on further up the lane that forks to Sherbury Down, sheltered by a row of poplars, from where you can look down over the field through a gap in the hedge. From this vantage point Mr. Leapish the farmer sits in his Land Rover and surveys the rustic scene with satisfaction. The men, he observes, like to race one another along the strawberry rows, while the women are attentive to each other, and don’t want anyone to get left behind. Mr. Leapish is mindful of this dinerence and has given the men new rows to pick, while the women he assigns to go over the rows that have already been picked by the men. The women earn less, of course, but they are used to that where they come from, and they don’t complain. Thus by working with the grain of human nature, he maximizes both productivity and yield. He is pleased with his skill as a manager.

Today is Saturday, payday, and he will have to fork out for their wages later, so his mind is particularly focused on issues of arithmetic. Eight boxes per tray, half a kilo per box, eighty kilos per picker per day on average, six days a week, over a twelve-week season. His brain ticks over enortlessly in mental arithmetic mode. When this field is picked out, they’ll move on to another one down in the valley, then back up here again after the plants have reberried. Pickers are paid 30p a kilo, before deductions. And each kilo sells at £2. Not bad. All in all, it’s not a bad little business, though he doesn’t make as much as that newcomer Tilley up the road with his acres of polytunnels. He could get more if he sold to the big supermarkets, but he doesn’t want the inspectors poking around in his trailers, or asking questions about the relationship between Wendy’s business and his business. The beauty of it is that half of what you fork out in wages you can claw back in living expenses. And he’s helping these poor souls make a bit of money that they could never get their hands on back where they come from. So that’s a bonus.

At one o’clock precisely, he will drive up to the gate and honk the horn and watch the strawberry pickers pick up their laden trays of boxes and make their way down the field. He should really pick up the trays more often in the warm weather, and get the fruit into cold storage. That’s what you have to do to sell at £2.50 a kilo to the big supermarkets. But the local petrol stations that are his outlets don’t ask questions.

Maybe the Ukrainian boy will already be down there, waiting to open the gate. Keen. Good picker. Hard worker. Wish they were all like that. This new girl seems a bit of a dead loss, but maybe she’ll speed up a bit when she picks up the rhythm. Nice looking, but not very forthcoming - at his age, he needs someone who knows what she’s doing to get the old motor started. Don’t know why Vulk sent her - he’d asked for another man. Now Vulk wants her back. Maybe he’ll put her to work in another of his little businesses. Well, he’ll have to see how she performs at the check-in. If she’s useless, he might have to let Vulk take her on his hands.

Excerpted from Strawberry Fields by Marina Lewycka Copyright © 2007 by Marina Lewycka. Excerpted by permission of Penguin Group USA, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.