Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka

 

I'm not really 100% sure what to think of this book. But one thing I will say is it's not "hilarious" or "a funny, charming rolicking road trip". FFS, what is wrong with these people???! This is written by the author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukarainian which I mentioned in the review of Mr Rosenblum's List. And I had the exact same thing to say about those. Reviewed as hilarious but really, to mis-quote Marsellus Wallace, it's "pretty f***ing far from hilarious".

It's basically about exploitation of immigrants with a side order of sex trafficking thrown in for good measure. It starts off with a group of 9 or so immigrants who works on a strawberry picking farm in Kent. All of them live in two small caravans on site. They are paid peanuts and charged for expenses (ie rent, food, the cost of the air they breath etc) naturally. But they're all pretty happy with it. But then the Farmer's wife tries to kill him and they all have to leave to escape the attention of the police. Some decide to go home but get waylaid by one of the traffickers on the way who offers them wonderful work opportunities on a chicken farm and nannying work for two of the girls in Amsterdam. He later gets berated by the boss-trafficker because they "were not virgins" afterall.

The story stays with the UK group and not the Amsterdam girls, thankfully. The chicken farm section is horrible. Just nasty. Battery farming, hanging them upside down, ankle deep chicken waste, breaking their legs through lack of care. Urgh. If I wasn't already a vegetarian who'd gone off eggs....

The group do manage to escape this (after another worker gets his arm chopped off in the machinery) and some thankfully do get to go home. 

Throughout the book the main female character is being chased by the lead trafficker who wants her for sex work. She has to keep running for her life. 

As you can see, it's really not jolly. 

The conversation between them all is written with a solid amount of underlying humour so the book isn't as horrifically dark and claustrophobic as it sounds. There's one fun section where they stay for a bit in an old people's home as the nurse wants them to talk to a Ukrainian resident. The resident turns out to be the character in the Tractors book and it was nice to think of him still going on causing havoc for all those around. But I wouldn't say I enjoyed reading it as such. It wasn't a bad book, certainly not badly written or anything. Just not an enjoyable topic but not heartbreaking in the same way as A Thousand Splendid Suns was. I finished it to get it finished rather than because the characters kept me enthralled. I didn't hate it either though. There. How's that for a super helpful review?!