![]() ![]() It gives nothing away to say: Whatever they decide to do, it isn't going to work. ![]() "What has happened to me? I used to be a feminist," she laments. Not Nadezhda, who feels appalled that she can so easily abandon her liberal, do-gooder principles. But now they have a cause to agree upon: getting rid of Valentina. The latest dispute concerns their dead mother's will. Locked in a long-standing quarrel, they haven't spoken in two years. ![]() Nadezhda is an idealistic university lecturer, Vera an elitist dedicated to the acquisition of status goods. The sisters, a decade apart in age, live in different worlds. She will have to call her older sister Vera. "When you see her you will understand." Nadezhda, who narrates the novel with wry asides she is afraid to say aloud, admits she is not up to a fight against bosoms. The woman is like "Botticelli's Venus rising from waves," he assures his horrified daughter. In a phone call to the book's narrator, Nadezhda, the latter's 84-year-old father announces his plan to marry Valentina so she can remain in England. The fresh hell, introduced on the very first page of this sly and poignant novel, is Valentina, a 36-year-old blond divorcee from Ukraine whose United Kingdom tourist visa is about to expire. ![]()
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