Marina Lewycka's Strawberry Fields
One of the blurbs on the back describes this as "a comic triumph", which is a completely ridiculous assessment--not to say the book is bad, which it isn't, but it's mostly not funny at all (there is plenty of dark comedy, but also many depressing scenes as well, most of which involve chicken farming). Anyway, it's the story of a bunch of immigrants (legal and not) in England working on a strawberry farm. When the farmer's wife runs down her cheating husband, they must figure out how to make due. Several characters who figure heavily in the first half of the book completely disappear for the rest of it, leaving the three youngest workers to carry on with the story. Oh, and bits are narrated by a dog, which I had mixed feelings about. I really enjoyed this, but would recommend that any of you who read it ignore the book jacket, which totally gives the story away. A/A-.
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