Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka: book review

Two Caravans (2007) is set in the south of England on a farm. There are two caravans of immigrants from various countries such as Poland, China, Malawi, and Russia in England for seasonal work picking strawberries. The 2008 edition is called Strawberry Fields.

The novel is light in parts and serious in parts – with issues such as illegal immigration, work conditions, trafficking, and prostitution. But overall the characters lack depth because people come and go. There are only a handful of characters that are followed through until the end of the novel.

The narration and dialogue is uneven – sometimes narrated by Polish immigrant Irina, and sometimes by a dog, and sometimes in the third person. Therefore the characters were rather caricatures rather than ‘real’ people, with some strange plots and adventures.

It starts well but loses focus. Hence it is not as comical as her first novel, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (2005).

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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