Fiction is Stranger than Fact
On the way into the office on the GO Train a couple of weeks back, an advertisement caught my eye. The “Book of the Month” was the unlikely titled “A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian” by Marina Lewycka. Usually, I am not one for finding a good read from an advertisement in the newspaper, even though this one was apparently short-listed for the Mann Booker Prize 2005 (I am a sucker for anything that wins awards). However, this book (which I hasten to add I have not read) nonetheless caught the eye of this estate litigator with the following synopsis (culled from the Penguin website):
“For years two sisters have had as little to do with each other as possible…But now they had better learn how to get along, because since their mother’s death, their aging father has been sliding into his second childhood, and an alarming new woman has just entered his life. Valentina, a bosomy young synthetic blonde seems to think their father is much richer than he is and she is keen to see that he leaves this world with as little money to his name as possible. If the sisters don’t stop her no one will.”
I don’t know if Valentina marries the father, or whether he demands a marriage contract or whether the sisters file a Notice of Objection after their father’s death to challenge his new will. If the author’s audience is anyone other than estate lawyers, I expect these concerns don’t figure prominently in the plot. If nothing else, Ms. Lewycka joins the ranks of Dickens, Grisham, and others as authors who recognize the universal appeal of an estate fight…
Until tomorrow,
David M. Smith
