Sign up to The Irish Times Archive (1859 - 2008)My Account »

Sat 03 Mar 2007Limp gags that pack a punchFiction:The chance, or make that hope, of earning money by picking English strawberries brings a mixed group of foreign workers together. They are not all students attracted by the possibility of having some fun while gathering their college fees.A far stronger element of shared desperation bonds the characters brought together in Marina Lewycka's earthy second novel. This is a book that will be subjected to heavy scrutiny, mainly because her debut, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, published in 2005, was such an unexpected and exuberant comic hit.