Marina Lewycka's fifth novel, The Lubetkin Legacy, opens with an epigraph from Berthold Lubetkin – "Nothing is too good for ordinary people" – and there is a strong sense that Lewycka speaks through the words of the Georgian-born architect. This is an ambitious novel which combines the Lewycka trademark family comedy with political satire.
The book is set in Madely Court or the “Lubetkin Yurt”, a north London tower block in the 21st century. The inhabitants provide a microcosm that mirrors the state of the nation, dealing in particular with the housing shortage and the bedroom tax, “the final blow to the post-war settlement” which provides the key plot. Other themes such as wealth preservation, tax evasion and international corruption make their appearance with their accompanying characters and subplots.
Housing crisis
Out-of-work actor Berthold Sidebottom lives with his thrice-widowed mother, Lily Lukashenko and a parrot in a “penthouse” flat of the Lubetkin-designed Madely Court. London’s housing crisis is centre stage as exorbitant rents have driven Berthold home to live with Lily among a cast of eccentric characters struggling to survive in the unforgiving economy.
Berthold has been named after Lubetkin and there are indications his mother may have had an affair with the aechitect, whose idealistic approach to social housing serves to shine a light on its inexorable decline since Margaret Thatcher’s reign. The main story revolves around Berthold’s mistaken idea that the bedroom tax will deprive him of his home after Lily dies. She gasps, “Don’t let them get the flat Bertie!” on her way to hospital after the heart attack that will kill her within days. This entreaty strikes terror in Berthold’s heart and we are plunged into familiar Lewycka territory as desperation drives our protagonist deeper into deception and opportunities for absurdist humour proliferate.
Lily befriends Inna, a strange Ukrainian, during her brief hospital stay. It is this unlikely character Berthold invites to pose as his mother after her death, mistakenly believing he needs to fool the authorities. Inna moves into Berthold’s flat where she cooks for him, rotating a trio of Ukrainian dishes “golabki, kobaski and slatki” which they wash down with copious amounts of vodka. There’s something not quite right about Inna but Berthold can’t figure it out. Misunderstandings pile up as Berthold develops a crush on his neighbour, oblivious to his true love who has appeared in the unlikely guise of his housing officer.
In the meantime, Berthold struggles to find work as a Shakespearean actor, his frequent quotes from the Bard reminiscent of Mr Philpott, the Shakespeare-quoting school caretaker from Various Pets Alive Or Dead.
Bad behaviour is the stock in trade of the comic writer but we could have done with a little less. As the wild and wacky incidents pile up – Berthold is chained to a tree at one stage when the tower block community rallies to save cherry trees doomed to be cut down to make way for more flats (private of course) – the story becomes unbelievable in places.
Too many characters
Lewycka's witty first novel , A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, dealt in desperation and skulduggery but the characters were deeply and sympathetically drawn. It isn't that Lewycka doesn't have sympathy here, but there are too many characters and Lewycka's considerable talent is unable to do justice to them all.
Berthold’s story is interleaved with that of his neighbour Violet, who works in wealth preservation in the City. Attracted at first to the boss Marc Bonnier, she resists his attempts to seduce her at a candlelit dinner when she realises his company is involved in tax evasion and corruption issues in her native Kenya. Marc comes across as a rather cardboard villain: “the glint of candlelight that hardens his features instead of softening them, a mean and hungry flash in his eyes,” which leaves Violet in no doubt about his qualification as a ruthless bastard. She applies for an NGO post in Nairobi where she also investigates Horace Nzangu, a corrupt local official whose scams came to her attention when she worked for Mark. A foolhardy and unbelievable adventure leads Violet into dangerous territory before being conveniently rescued so that, “all’s well that ends well”, as the rules of comedy demand.
Through it all, Lewycka’s humour and love of people shine through. Perhaps the best character of all is Lily; dead by page 17 but haunting the book all the way to the end. Firmly to the left in her politics, Lily resists exercising her “right to buy” and all “shape-shifters” in her “demonology”. When Inna’s secret is revealed, Berthold wonders how Lily would have reacted to her friend’s duplicity before concluding that “Mother was generally tolerant of human weakness, especially when accompanied with a glass of booze”. It appears that her creator is equally tolerant, spinning comedy out of human weaknesses, believing, like her hero Lubetkin, that “Nothing is too good for ordinary people”.
Martina Evans’s The Windows of Graceland, New and Selected Poems will be published by Carcanet in June
