A historical novel about a second-generation British woman whose parents are Polish
‘Wodka, or Tea with Milk’ takes the reader on an immersive, rollercoaster ride into the Solidarnosc years in 1980s Poland. Marya Weiclawski is second-generation British, the daughter of Polish refugees who fled during World War Two. When her Cambridge University interview goes wrong – her fault actually – she resolves to seek out her Polish family whom no one speaks of, and her father’s RAF comrade, Pyotr Murkowski, whom her beloved dad, Jerzy, has suddenly stopped talking about. Marya becomes involved in the shipyard strikes in Gdansk in 1980 and falls in love with Jan, a shipyard worker. Jan is well liked by colleagues, unflappable and down-to-earth - a bit too much so for volatile Marya – but he appears to have no family and in Poland family is everything.