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

He made a point of sitting next to her at dinner.

"Hi. Ukrainka?"

"Of course."

"Me too."

"I can see."

"What’s your name?"

"Irina."

He waited for her to ask - "And yours?" - but she didn’t.

"Andriy."

He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t.

"From Kiev?" he continued.

"Of course."

"Donetsk."

"Ah, Donetsk. Coal miners."

Did he detect a hint of condescension in her voice?

"You been to Donetsk?"

"Never."

"I came to Kiev."

"Oh yes?"

"In December. When demonstrations were going on."

"You came for demonstrations?" A definite condescending lilt.

"I came to demonstrate against demonstrations."

"Ah. Of course."

"Maybe I saw you then. You were there?"

"Of course. In Maidan Square."

"In demonstration?"

"Of course. It was our Orange Freedom Revolution."

"I was with the other side. White and Blue."

"The losing side."

She smiled again. A flash of white teeth, that’s all there was to it. He tries to picture the face, but he can’t get it into focus. No, there was more to it than teeth; there was a crinkling around the nose and eyes, a little lift of the eyebrows, and two infuriating dimples winking below the cheeks. Those dimples - he can’t get them out of his mind. Was it just a smile, or did it mean something?

And if it means something, does it mean I’ve got a good possibility here? A good possibility of a man-woman possibility? Should I take things further? Or should I just play it cool? A girl like that - she’s too used to men running after her. Wait for her to show the first card. But what if she’s shy - what if she needs a bit of help with that first card? Sometimes a man must act to bring about a possibility.

But then again, isn’t this the wrong time and place, Andriy Palenko, to be involving yourself with another Ukrainian girl? What about the blond-haired Angliska rosa you came all this way to England for, the pretty blue-eyed girl who is waiting for you, though she doesn’t know it yet herself, loaded with high-spec features: skin like smetana, pink-tipped Angliski breasts, golden underarm hair like duckling down, et cetera. And a rich Papa, who at first may not be too happy about his daughter’s choice because he wants her to marry a banker in a bowler hat like Mr. Brown - what father would not? - but when he gets to know you will soften his heart and welcome you into his luxurious en-suite- bathroom house. For sure he will find a nice little job for his Ukrainian son-in-law. Maybe even a nice car . . . Mercedes. Porsche. Ferrari. Et cetera.

Yes, this new Ukrainian girl has some positive features: nice looking, nice smile, nice dimples, nice figure, nicely rounded, plenty to get hold of, not too thin like those stylish city girls who starve themselves into Western-type matchsticks. But she’s only another Ukrainian girl - plenty of those where you came from. And besides, she’s a bit snobbish. She thinks she’s better than you. She thinks she’s a high-culture type with a superior mentality, and you’re a low-culture type. (And so what if you are? Is that something to be ashamed of?) You can tell by the way she talks, being so stingy with her words, as if it’s money she’s counting out. And the ridiculous plait, like that crow Julia Timoshenko, fake-traditional Ukrainian. Tied with an orange ribbon. She thinks she’s better than you because she’s from Kiev and you’re from Donbas. She thinks she’s better than you, because your dad’s a miner - a dead miner, at that.

Poor Dad. Not the life for a dog let alone a man. Underground. Down below the mushrooms. Down with the legions of ghost miners, all huddled up in the dark, singing their eerie dead-men’s songs. No, he can’t go down there anymore, even if it’s the only way he knows how to live, how to put bread on the table. He’ll have to find another way. What would his father have wanted him to do? It’s hard enough living up to your parents’ expectations when you know what they expect. But all Andriy’s father ever said to him was, "Be a man." What is that supposed to mean?

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.