Limp gags that pack a punch

Fiction: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.

In that first book, the bewildered narrator, a middle-aged female academic settled in England, who is the daughter of Ukrainian emigrants, attempts to make sense of her elderly widower father's intentions to marry a Ukrainian divorcee almost half a century younger who sees him as a way of securing a passport and much more. In addition to trying to save her father, the narrator also has to contend with her bossy elder sister and the fact that she has always been guilty about not having suffered from the wartime displacement which affected her parents and her sister. A Short History is incredibly funny; it triumphs as crazed domestic comedy but it also succeeds through its unsentimental and deliberate exploration of the legacy of war and the fact that people may leave their country behind them, but they can never escape either their history or their past.

Aside from the inspired comic set pieces, the characterisation (most particularly the creation of Pappa, old Mr Mayevskyj) and the sustained narrative tone, Lewycka's debut possessed an unusual freshness and ease, thanks to Nadezhda, the exasperated and sympathetic narrator. This new work has its moments and is often funny, but too many of the gags depend on replicating English as spoken by non-natives. Much is made of the cultural rivalries and national tensions experienced by people who find themselves confronting their countrymen in a foreign land. Migrant workers have contrasting approaches towards making money: some accept exploitation, others become exploiters.

Two Caravans takes a hard look at exactly how appalling are the working conditions imposed on migrant workers who come from countries with low standards of living. Late on in the narrative Irina tells an African nurse who, on arrival in England, has to pay for her "adaptation training course" that "wages for strawberry-picker in England is higher than for teacher or nurse in Ukraine". While some of their countrymen come to England to work hard, live in squalor and pay at least half of their wages back to their employers for poor food and sub-standard accommodation, others become involved in vice rings.

Throughout the narrative - which is partly told by Irina, a young Ukrainian girl intent on bettering her English and experiencing a romance worthy of Tolstoy, and through the consciousness of handsome Andriy, a fellow Ukrainian, the son of a miner who died in a mining accident, as well as through an omniscient narrator, not forgetting the cryptic commentary of a stray dog who befriends the workers - Lewycka is making important points about the abuse of migrant workers. The book is dedicated to the Morecambe Bay cockle-pickers and it is impossible not to feel the author's anger. For all the polemic, there is risqué slapstick, but in fairness to Lewycka she has attempted, not entirely successfully, because of the exploitation and violence, to balance the two.

LIFE ON THE strawberry farm in Kent initially allows her to bounce her characters off each other. Young girls looking for college fees and/or romance are contrasted with the sadder story of Yola, 47 and the single mother of a handicapped child. She is the camp leader and has an arrangement with the farmer, and is also the fantasy figure for Tomasz, a middle-aged hippy who plays his guitar and offends the others with his smelly feet. Once the farmer appears on the scene and the reader is made privy to his greedy thoughts about further cutting the cost of feeding his workers and extracting more of their earnings from them (under the heading of expenses), it becomes obvious that anger is the real motivation behind the story.

The working conditions are bad, the living conditions even worse. Meanwhile, there is a further menace as one of the agents, a suitably repulsive stage gangster, is determined to have his way with Irina, whose narrative sequences soon become increasingly irritating. Equally unconvincing are the long letters written in a formal English by a young African worker who has come to England in search of his sister. Most ill-advised of all is Lewycka's decision to include cryptic, continuous-stream-of-consciousness bulletins from the hero, a large black dog who signs off each time with "I Am Dog".

When the farmer's wife discovers her husband's sexual activities, the expected showdown, which is funny, results in the narrative becoming a high-speed picaresque. The flight sequences are well-handled. When it seems that everyone is headed for Dover and a return to a Europe that must not seem so bad after all, a detour emerges in the shape of a chicken farm.

This vividly written interlude proves even more shocking and could have a far-reaching impact on the British chicken industry. Meanwhile, Irina's rejected suitor remains in pursuit.

It is ironic that although Lewycka, an able and talented comic writer with an understanding of her own culture as well as that of her adopted Britain, has failed to even approach the quality of her meticulously executed first book, this sprawlingly limp extravaganza delivers many political punches and could instigate a much-needed investigation of the business Andriy refers to as "this global economic".

Admirers of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian will be jaw- droppingly disappointed - although Mr Mayevskyj has a walk-on part in the nursing home sequence - but migrant workers everywhere may well be grateful.

Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times

Two Caravans By Marina Lewycka Penguin, 308pp. £16.99