The Lubetkin legacy

Marina Lewycka has done it again, anyone who enjoyed her Short history of tractors in Ukraine* will love this. Here again is a book which has everything, humour, pathos, joy, and page turning tension all wrapped together with an excellent story line.

The setting for the story is a 1950s London Council housing block with its widely varied assortment of tenants. Among these occupants are a couple of Ukraine grandmothers, one with her permanently out of work actor son living with her, a wheelchair bound diabetic man, a young Kenyan lady office worker, a solo dad with son and a universally disliked gossip. The only person even less liked is the council officer in charge of the block.

The barren building’s sole redeeming feature is that it looks onto a small courtyard plot with a lawn and few flowering cherry trees – something for the residents to look out on, particularly during the bleak winter the spring flowering to look forward to.

The story brings the reader up to date the residents complicated lives, how and why each has ended up in this building. There is little interaction between them until the young Kenyan, quite by accident, finds that the Council has plans to sell the building to a developer who intends to build on the small plot of land. She sets to work to organise the resident’s opposition to the plan. This happens but with each doing his or her own thing, more a guerrilla operation than a co-ordinated effort.

A wonderful story so very well told. I’m looking forward to Marina’s next book.
Mike Beckett
* If you haven’t read this book I highly recommend it.