Viv Groskop

One Ukrainian Summer (Bok)

Instead, she finds herself studying the lead guitarist of a Ukrainian punk rock band. Utterly besotted, Viv follows him to festivals and dive bars around the country, travelling through a blur of wheat fields and valleys of sunflowers. The guitarist sings her love songs, teaches her Ukrainian, and gives her a persistent case of head lice. But is he serious about her? Or is she just another groupie? Between gigs, they stay with his elderly parents in a dusty Soviet city. His mother shows her the correct way to eat borsch. His dad lends her books by Taras Shevchenko, the national answer to Shakespeare. At parties, Viv and her new friends argue about whose turn it is to buy cigarettes and the best places to find Levi's jeans. No-one debates whether to speak Russian or Ukrainian, where the border is, or whether the future is bright. Of course it is: the Soviet Union is finished. Isn't it? A poignant, often comical account of coming-of-age in the time after the Cold War and before Putin, One Ukrainian Summer evokes a unique moment in one country's history, and is a love letter to its people and culture.

ALL AUTHOR PROCEEDS FROM THIS BOOK TO BE DONATED TO PEN UKRAINE