The Road Home

First, let me start by saying that this book was a gift from Paul, so thank you Paul for your generosity and also for helping me to discover a new author. I really liked this story and think it is one that I will revisit.

The main character here is Lev, a widower in his forties trying to raise a

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young daughter and take care of his mother. The sawmill in his village has closed down, and there is no more work for him. He is also still grieving the loss of his wife, so Lev is a bit closed down himself. We are not told what country he is from, but the references make it feel like Poland or perhaps Russia. When we meet Lev, he is on his way to London to look for work. He hopes to find a job, but this is much more difficult than he had thought. It is not just that he doesn't speak the language well, it's that everything works so differently and things cost much more than he had anticipated. His story is a familiar one except that Tremain's writing elevates the ordinariness of Lev's journey - it feels real, and the characters feel real, which is what I loved about this book.

I also loved how Lev wanted to move forward but couldn't resist looking back. That's how the heart works - we grieve for what we have lost, for what we can no longer have, and if left unchecked, it can threaten our forward momentum. The book beautifully captures Lev's aloneness - he is surrounded by people, but they are not his people. And Lev is fully human - he is resilient and hard-working, willing to learn and approachable, but often lets his anger get the best of him. He is both selfish and generous. Thoughtful and thoughtless. Like most of us, he is deeply flawed. So we are shown both his beauty and his ugliness. There were times when I wanted to wring his neck or, at the very least, smack him around a bit, but for the most part I genuinely liked him. And I enjoyed his journey.

My only complaint would be that the ending here seemed too abrupt. I felt cheated, and I wanted more. I don't need for things to be neat and tidy, but I like when they feel finished. And that unfinished feeling here is what had me deducting half a star from the rating. Other than that, the book is lovely.

"Lev could see that darkness was falling outside the window and he thought how, in his village, darkness had always arrived in precisely the same way, from the same direction, above the same trees, whether early or late, whether in summer, winter, or spring, for the whole of his life. This darkness - particular to that place, Auror - was how, in Lev's heart, darkness would always fall."

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This is a terrific story, gripping from start to finish, touching, heartwarming and refreshingly devoid of too much trauma. BUT ... it struck me as a curious winner of the Orange Prize for Women's fiction. It's a book that doesn't seem to like women.

Its focus is Eastern European immigrant, Lev. Lev

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is a modestly heroic figure, stoical, determined and, ultimately, capable of transforming his life and the lives of those around him. Ruggedly good looking, he clearly represents a figure attractive to Tremain's largely female readership. In his isolation and loneliness as he comes to London looking for work, he is there to be mothered/ loved. The only problem is, the quality of the women with whom he comes into contact. Lydia, fellow Eastern European whom he sits next to on the journey to England, is physically unattractive, with too many moles on her face. In the choices she makes later in the novel she comes close to prostituting herself. The young woman with whom he has a relationship later in the book makes a similar choice: in one disturbing scene she comes across as deserving of virtually being raped by Lev. The only woman good enough for him, it seems, is his dead wife, Marina. Even she may no longer be good enough. Towards the end of the novel he meets a woman strikingly similar to Marina but rejects her too, because she is not what he needs in this phase of his life.

Early in the novel, Lev eats dinner as the guest of a middle-class couple in Muswell Hill. They have no link to him other than that he sat on the bus next to Lydia, who is a friend of theirs. The woman in this house takes pity on Lev and happily lets him stay overnight, sensing he has been sleeping rough. Here is the one woman deserving of Lev and, it seems, of the novel's approval: the liberal N. London reader of Tremain's fiction, someone who can help out the Levs of this world but who can ultimately withdraw back into her own space and have nothing to do with him. Enjoy him in a book, unlike all that other vulgar bunch.

Gosh! More a criitique than a review. Good read, though.

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Rose Tremain's [u]The Road Home[/u] was winner of the Orange Broadband Prize for 2008 and shortlisted for the Costa Novel Prize (Whitbread that was). I won't attempt a summary or even a thoughtful look at themes and concerns, but ----- What a lovely, lovely, lovely book! I read it as slowly as I

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could to savor it. It is such a pleasure to read a piece of serious contemporary fiction that doesn't depend on dysfunction, incest, spouse or child abuse, or psychiatric abnormalities as a springboard to some final life-affirming statement. Lev has his problems, but he is basically a sweet, decent human being and I loved accompanying him on his journey.

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The Road Home, which was released yesterday, August 26, has already been awarded the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. Sometimes I read a book that has won a prestigious award and I come away wondering why it won, or I may understand why, but award or no, I just didn't like the book. Not so with

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The Road Home. It is completely deserving of the Orange Prize and I loved every page of it.

Rose Tremain has given us a poignant, perfectly crafted novel. It is beautifully written. The plot ambles along at a relaxed and steady pace, but never once did I lose interest. I attribute this to two things. First, the compelling characters and Tremain's ability to draw the reader in, to make us emotionally invested in what happens to these rather ordinary people.

Lev ... I really liked this guy. And by the book's end, I knew him so well. Lev's journey to London and the life he lived there made the immigrant experience so real. The competing cacophony of emotions: he was hopeful, overwhelmed, frustrated, angry, sad, at one point blissfully in love. He felt he was betraying those he left behind just by being in London, even though he was there to make life better for them; if he enjoyed life in his temporary city, he felt guilty. I felt Lev's frustration with the language barrier. Reading about how he was treated as somehow inferior just because he dressed differently, had different mannerisms, struggled to understand and make himself understood made my heart break with sympathy.

There were other characters who I grew to care about, and surprisingly most were men. I sometimes find it difficult to warm to adult male characters. But in this case, I quickly came to adore Rudi, Lev's brash and reckless, yet big-hearted old friend and Christy Slane, Lev's sweet, easygoing, down on his luck London flatmate.

The second thing that stands out about this novel are the descriptions of the two central places: London and the unnamed Eastern European country Lev comes from. The richly textured images Tremain so masterfully creates stand alone, but are especially meaningful when viewed in contrast. Lev's home country, struggling to feel hopeful after the fall of communism seemed bleak, faded, gray, sadly downtrodden. London, a frenzied melting pot, at times glamorous and sophisticated, at others gritty and ordinary, but always colorful and alive.

The characters and images in this highly readable, exquisitely written book will remain with me long after I turned the last page.

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I couldn't decide whether to give this three or fourstars. For some reason I didn't enjoy it quite as much as some of her other books. Maybe I didn't relate to Lev as closely as I might. His story was poignant, and the sense of loss strong, but perhaps the storyline was a little predictable. Maybe

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I am being too harsh

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This lovely book was a gift from a friend and it was spot on for me. I loved Lev, the protagonist who travels from his post-Communism Eastern European home to London to find work. It's the current day and Lev, whose wife died of Leukemia at age 36 (high incidence of this in their community -- go

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figure) and whose mother and 5-year-old daughter he leaves behind, meets Lydia on the long bus ride to London. Lydia becomes a touchstone and the holder of optimism for Lev, who is desperate to make his way in the world and to provide for his family. Some of the funnier scenes involve Lev's memories of adventures with his pal, Rudi, back in Auror, the hometown that is eventually doomed to modern progress. In any case, along the way Lev faces the brutal realities of life in a capitalist country and he encounters people whose kindness, humor, and resilience provide the meaning. Midway through the novel, the reader is provided with a detour into Lev's greedy and lustful wrestling match with despair. Neither compassionate nor condemnatory, the narrative simply allows us to view this facet of Lev's character. He is human and he is male, and at this point in his life he is lonely and riddled with need and self-doubt. Still, he seems to have a kernel of determination that cannot be extinguished.

Relentlessly optimistic, this is still no fairy tale. It's a delightful exploration of the immigrant experience, the meeting of cultures, and the persistence of hope and meaning in the face of their partners, despair and capricious fate. Filled with interesting and memorable characters, its deceptive complexity makes it a novel worth reading. Highly recommended and with thanks to Paul for the introduction.

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Rarely have I been so confused as to my opinion on a book. Let me say first that I'm generally a big fan of Tremain - I love The Colour and Music and Silence, and to a lesser extent enjoyed Restoration, and have always consider her to be excellent at building an atmosphere. In some ways The Road

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Home entirely lived up to expectations, and in others it was disappointing.

I'll start with the positives. In the main character, Lev, Tremain gives an excellent portrayal of a man trying to build a better future while coming to terms with his wife's death. As ever, she is brilliant at creating complicated, deeply sympathetic but flawed characters and Lev is one of her best, along with a few strong supporting characters. The evolving friendship between Lev and his landlord is one of the most satisfying parts of the book, and while his English love interest is a little annoying, their contrasting values and personalities provide some insightful moments.

Tremain perfectly captures the loneliness and confusion of being an immigrant, tied in with the loneliness and confusion of being bereaved. There is some interesting exploration of modern Britain, notably into underlying (and not so underlying) xenophobia, but also a humorous look at fashionable artists and writers. The differences between the shallow, absurd world Lev witnesses in this society contrasts with what he knows at home, which is an interesting perspective, but brings me on to my main frustration with the novel.

Lev is from an unspecified country in Eastern Europe, and in her acknowledgments Tremain thanks the agricultural workers she interviewed in England. However, she doesn't seem to have gone to Eastern Europe herself, which is disappointing. I am far from believing that literature's only purpose is to change public opinion, but can't help thinking that the descriptions of Len's mother, his home town and his friends' experiences perpetuate the image of Eastern Europe as a backward, impoverished place which is out of touch with the modern world - some of the very ideas that other parts of the book try to challenge. Why doesn't Tremain give Lev's country a name? Is it to make his story more universal or is it to prevent offence? Offence, in my opinion, would be justified. While there are still some very poor rural places in Eastern Europe, her description is not true of the vast majority. Yes - it's harder to get world class cuisine - no, people are not blown away by American cars, women in their 60s are no stupider than anywhere else and goats don't generally wonder around the kitchen.

It might have become clear that I'm not entirely objective. This is because I've lived in Central and Eastern Europe for a while now, teaching English. This brings me to my next point. At the beginning of the story Lev's English is distinctly dodgy, yet after about a year he is reading Hamlet. Similarly he gets a job as a dishwasher and ends up a gourmet chef. The affect these achievements have on his relationships with people from home (in particular his best friend) is interesting, but the shifting balance of confidence and leadership would have been much more effective if more subtle.

Ultimately the story itself is just as involving as The Colour and Music and Silence, but minor elements were so frustrating that they distracted me from enjoying it thoroughly.

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At the start of The Road Home, Lev has boarded a bus from his Eastern European village where the main employer has closed down. With the expansion of the EU, he is travelling to the UK ("I am legal" is one of the English phrases he has committed to memory) in order to earn money for his mother and

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his daughter (his wife has recently died of leukaemia). In London, he encounters much that is unfamiliar, but also begins to build friendships, particularly with Lydia, a compatriot he met on the bus, and his Irish landlord Christy, whose ex-wife is preventing him having access to their child.

The touching relationship between these two lonely men, both missing their daughters but wishing to do the best by them, is one of the highlights of the book (at least, of the part I managed to read). There's also a nice thread about language and jargon - Lev has had English lessons before coming to the UK but is baffled by the language of job advertisements and room-for-rent notices, of self-improving business-speak, of the posh restaurant where he gets a job in the kitchen.

But.

This book was highly praised for giving humanity to the anonymous figure of the immigrant. Christy, too, could be another negative stereotype, the deadbeat dad (before his wife left him he was having trouble finding work, and drinking heavily). They are portrayed very sensitively. But for me, this was totally undermined by the fact that the book didn't bother giving humanity to the vast mass of the English working-class (who are all fat, drunken, incomprehensible and greasy-faced). There are several asides which sound to me much more like a middle-class Englishwoman's reaction to modern Britain than that of a working-class Eastern European man. Most of the speech of the British characters is really tin-eared - which grates even more in comparison to, say, the well-written conversations between Christy and Lev. And it seemed to me there was a lot of lazy stereotyping going on. You can see that from the fact that Christy's ex-wife is now shacked up with an estate agent - easily one of the top five most hated professions in Britain. Oh well, then, we just know we can hate him. Wouldn't it have been more subtle if we could have had sympathy for Christy's wife as well? If she had been someone who left him because she couldn't stand the fact that he kept coming home incoherent and throwing up on the hall carpet, but ended up with someone who loved her and was able to care for her and her child? I don't think that would necessarily have made Christy's character any less sympathetic.

I know a lot of people have rated this book very highly, and I really, really, really did try. I kept picking it up for another go, but inevitably, after a really moving piece, I would come to something which made me roll my eyes and grind my teeth, and, y'know, that's not really what I look for in my reading. So, onto the 'abandoned' pile it goes.

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Out of work and mourning the loss of his wife, Lev leaves his Eastern European homeland on a bus bound for London. Lev begins life in London homeless and nearly penniless. Lydia, a woman he met on the bus, uses her personal connections to help Lev secure inexpensive accommodation and employment in

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a restaurant. This is then a springboard for relationships both friendly and romantic, and he begins to develop expertise in food and the restaurant business. His journey is filled with hardship, ranging from typical "fish out of water" scenarios to more serious ethnic prejudice. Whenever trouble strikes, he turns to Lydia for support, but abuses this relationship by failing to realize how their paths have diverged during their time in England.

Lev is also plagued by worry about those he left behind. He is in frequent phone contact with his friend Rudi, a carefree contrast to the conservative and somber Lev. Lev's relationship with his mother is primarily about money, which he sends home regularly to provide for her and his young daughter Maya. One day, Lev learns that his home village is threatened and he must develop a scheme to save his family and friends. The Road Home recounts Lev's struggles as an immigrant, and the inner journey of coming to terms with his past, dispensing with demons, and establishing a new direction for his life.

I was instantly drawn into Lev's story. His loneliness and isolation were palpable. The important figures in his life, both at home and in England, were rich and believable. In some cases, it was a bit too obvious the purpose Tremain had in mind for each character; however, this did not diminish my enjoyment of this prizewinning novel.

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Lev is 43 years old and forced to leave his rural East European town to seek work in London. He has been widowed (his young wife Marina having died from Leukemia) and must support his daughter Maya and his elderly mother who remain behind in Russia. Lev barely speaks English and is at first

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bewildered by London. But Lydia, a woman he meets on the train, helps him find a job working in a posh restaurant where he meets the sexy Sophie. Lev eventually finds lodging with an Irishman named Christy Slane who is also experiencing loss.

Lev’s story is painful at times. He misses Marina - cannot seem to get past the loss of her - and struggles to save money to send home to his daughter and mother. His future seems hopeless and he misses his country and his best friend, Rudi - a gregarious man whose love affair with an American Chevy and his fondness for life make him immediately endearing.

Rudi was everything this story made him out to be - and more. He was a force of nature. He was a lightning bolt. He was a fire that never went out. - from The Road Home, page 277 -

It is largely Lev’s friendship with men like Christy and Rudi which elevates him past his grief and imbues him with hope. When Lev recalls a hiking trip with Rudi to an isolated cave shortly after Marina’s death, the reader begins to see there will be a future for him after all.

It was at this moment - with Rudi halfway up the ladder - that he heard himself whispering to his friend, “Don’t look down…don’t look back…” and he felt that he suddenly understood why Rudi had brought him here and that the thing he had to embrace was the idea of perseverance. - from The Road Home, page 127 -

The Road Home is a character driven novel about loss and identity. It is a novel which reminds the reader that the past must sometimes be left behind in order to move forward. Dreams are the fuel for overcoming obstacles in this story of a man who must leave his home in order to find it again. Lev is a dreamer and a romantic. He is a character who readers want to see succeed, a man whose flaws are surpassed by his kind and vulnerable heart.

Rose Tremain has yet to disappoint me - I’ve read Music and Silence and The Colour and found them both outstanding. Tremain’s novels are written with sensitivity and insight into the human condition - and The Road Home is perhaps her finest work. This novel won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2008.

Highly recommended.

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I was a bit disappointed with it, I think because I'd been expecting great things from Tremain and I don't think it was up to that level. The story follows Lev, from an unidentified Eastern European country, who comes to London to find work and send money back home to his mother and daughter after

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his wife dies. At first he is totally disorientated in the city, has to sleep rough and his first "job" involves delivering leaflets for £5 a day. But he finds his feet, improves (dramatically!) his circumstances and eventually returns home. Some parts seemed very authentic - the descriptions of London during a hot summer's day, the treatment of immigrants, the confusion that is London if you don't know it, are a few examples, but Lev seemed unrealistically lucky. He definitely fell on his feet, in what seemed an unlikely way. I'm not sure that it is a story of a typical immigrant's stay in the UK, although I'm not sure if there's such a thing as a "typical immigrant" anyway! It was very readable though it's not the sort of book I'd end up staying up all night just to finish, but reading it wasn't a chore

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At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of this book. We meet the main character, Lev, on a bus taking him to London from his home in an unnamed ex-Communist Eastern European country. The only industry in his small town has closed down, and he is looking for work. He has little English, less money,

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and no plan whatsoever. In his first few days in London, he finds a bed & breakfast but can only afford one night, runs out of money, gets a “job” delivering leaflets for a restaurant for pocket change, and sleeps rough outside someone’s basement. Clearly this will be a story about the hardships faced by immigrants and the indifference of the big city, but will it be a “rags to riches” tale or a “dreams destroyed by indifferent world” one? I thought it was the latter, and I was annoyed with Lev – what did he think would happen if he turned up like that, and why did I (who live in London and am generally extremely well disposed towards foreigners of any kind) need to feel guilty about it? But I hadn’t read 50 pages yet, so I kept going.

Just when things hit rock bottom (for Lev, and for me), Lev realizes that a woman he met on the bus has left him her phone number in London. She is staying with friends, and together they find Lev a flat share and a job in a restaurant – somewhat unrealistically, this happens within a day, and both work out well. The rest of the book describes how Lev gradually makes his way, improving his English, working in various jobs, making friends, saving money and sending some home to his mother and daughter (his wife has died).

There are heartwarming scenes – he and his flatmate take the flatmate’s daughter to the seaside, sad ones – through his own stupidity, he loses a job he loves, funny ones (for us, not him) – his mobile phone rings just as the conductor raises his baton at a fancy concert he has been taken to. There are also numerous flashbacks to his old life, as he remembers times with his wife and his best friend, Rudi. His heart is always really still in his hometown, and eventually he conceives a plan for going back and making a success, using his new found skills and his saved money.

In the end, I liked Lev, and I liked the book. The events and characters, both in London and back at home, were slightly unrealistic at times, but only to the extent necessary to make a story worth reading.

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The Road Home was the Orange Prize winning novel by Rose Tremain – a story of Lev, a Russian immigrant living in London. Lev immigrated to Britain after the mill in his village closed, leaving him without a means to support his mother and daughter. The decision to leave his family was a hard one,

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but soon Lev discovered that his journey to survive in London would be even harder.

Lev’s journey led him to a renowned restaurant where he discovered two newfound passions: cooking and Sophie. Lev watched as the chefs prepared their meals, learning every ounce in hopes that he too would become a chef. Sophie worked in the kitchen, and with her, Lev learned that he could feel love and passion again as he dealt with the sudden death of his wife, Marina.

The Road Home superbly discussed the hardships and the making of one’s way in a new country. It also dealt with the themes of home. “Home is where you heart is,” as the saying goes, but it also is where you are at that moment, even if it’s a temporary arrangement.

The most profound aspect of The Road Home for me was the excellent characterization created by Tremain. Lev was so human – fallible one minute, honorable the next. Filled with selfishness and then selflessness, he was the type of guy you could root for, despite his mistakes. Other male characters also livened up the story. Rudi, Lev’s best friend in Russia, was funny, rude and vulnerable, dependent on Lev’s admiration and friendship to help him live a better life. Christy was Lev’s landlord – a high-spirited Irish man, suffering from a divorce and the custodial loss of his daughter. It was a delight to read about such interesting men – they really made this story.

This is my second Tremain book, and while I enjoyed The Colour a little more, The Road Home was smart and provocative with memorable characters. I would highly recommend this book to readers who enjoy a good character-driven story, and I look forward to reading more from this talented storyteller.

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Impossible not to get attached to the protagonist, Lev, who leaves his hometown, young daughter and mother in his East European village where no work is to be found since the local mill has closed down to make his way to London and hopes for prosperity of some form. He finds work in the restaurant

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business and having made a new friend and a new lover in this big city, dreams up ways to save his loved ones back home. I was worried I wouldn't fall in love with Tremain's contemporary novels the way I've passionately loved her historical fiction (most especially Restoration and Merivel), but needn't have worried: she is a master of prose and has such a deep and special understanding of humanity and its many frailties, that whatever time period she chooses to write about ends up making for timeless stories somehow. 4.5 stars. I would have given it the full 5, only I do strongly favour historical fiction for taking me outside our current world.

Should give a special mention to Steven Pacey, who narrates the audio version. His reading was beautifully modulated and he successfully rendered a range of accents and gave each character a marked and fitting personality. Really wonderful when voice narration adds so much to the reading experience.

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(Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2008.)

Lev, an immigrant from a pointedly unnamed Eastern European country (probably one of the former Soviet republics), travels to London to find work. He struggles for a while, but not too terribly, and eventually comes up with a dream to take prosperity

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back to his country. He finds lodgings with a divorced man who misses his little daughter, just as Lev misses the child he left behind. Convenient. He sleeps in the little girl's former room, on her giraffe-sheeted bunk bed, among her abandoned toys. Hmmm... He falls in love with the wrong woman, and another woman wrongly falls in love with him. Unfortunate. While all the British characters have full names, neither Lev nor any of his compatriots from the nameless country have a surname. (What was that that just hit me over the head?) As simple as his name is, one person after another throughout the book gets it wrong. Uh huh. And they always get it wrong the same way--they call him "Olev". (Well, if that means something, it escapes me. Is that like calling all Arabs “Mohammed”, or all Irishmen “Paddy”?) Lev's home village is about to be flooded out for a hydroelectric plant that will give the area the reliable electricity they have never had, while destroying their ancestral homes and burial places. Oh, the irony.

See, I think I was just too aware of the author’s presence, of the fact that I was reading a significant work of literary fiction, to lose myself in the story. So is it the author's failing, or mine?

I wish I could drum up some enthusiasm for the book. It's well written; there's no question about that. There are beautiful descriptive passages. The dialog works. The characters are real people, but not especially interesting people. Not engaging, not infuriating, not funny, not touching. Well, except for Lev's mother, who is rather infuriating, with her selfish response to his efforts to realize his dream. And one of his co-workers, Simone, whose descriptions of Lev's menu items at the old folks' home made me chuckle. "Chef's fantastic fish gratin with zero bones and non-crap crumb"; "Watermelon sorbet with no black seeds or rubbish in it.” The book ends on an optimistic note, and I’m not even sure how I feel about that. Let’s call it 3 1/2 stars.

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I feel vaguely guilty for only giving this book 3½ stars and, even then, I'm wondering if that's ½ star too generous. Everyone who suggested it to me said, "It's great," or "It's supposed to be great." It won the Orange Prize in 2008 (a prize I have issues with but still consider to represent

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some measure of judgment regarding literary merit).

In fact, for the most part I enjoyed the story. Parts of it I enjoyed quite a bit more than such a rating might indicate. However, since I'm assuming many reviews will focus on the positive aspects of this book, let me focus on a few points that didn't work for me and which, ultimately, make me hesitant to give it a wholehearted endorsement.

To start with, I simply had misplaced expectations. The buzz around this book always focuses on its "capture of the immigrant experience." Sorry, but I don't really see that. The protagonist, Lev, arrives in the U.K. with little difficulty. He finds employment relatively quickly. After a couple of nights sleeping in a doorway—even those seem unnecessary, but we'll chalk it up to him being cautious about money—he finds lodging with a man who becomes a friend. He has little real trouble with the language. There's little sense of total culture shock, no more than I (an American) might expect to find in, say, Paris or Berlin. Most of all, other than a cliché mugging, he encounters almost no real prejudice over his foreignness. If someone were to say that it focuses on the experiences of a lonely widower who has issues with how he treats women, I might be more inclined to agree but, immigrant experience? I don't see it.

Moreover, it was all a bit pat. Lev's road home was full of luck, and coincidence, and more luck, and some remarkable hidden talent, and more luck...and, well, you get the idea. While the ending isn't 100% happy, it is generally a "didn't this all work out fabulously?" thing and I was never able to silence the voice in the back of my head that wondered if this was a Horatio Alger story rather than real life.

Most of all, I rather minded the broad generalizations: all fellow immigrants are warm and helpful; everyone in the Art world is shallow and unwilling to say that the emperor has no clothes; all inhabitants of Eastern European villages are hicks. (I swear I was flashing on the opening footage of The Beverly Hillbillies when they talked about moving Lev's mother.)

Rose Tremain is a good storyteller and The Road Home is a good story, containing some characters—like Christy—who are engaging. Lev, himself, held my interest, albeit not always my esteem. The descriptions of places and events bring them alive and the dialog rarely jarred by ear.

Still, there were lumps in gravy that kept me from enjoying the meal fully.

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I loved this, couldn't believe how the author could make a lonely, poverty-stricken immigrant so sympathetic and compelling. Beautifully balanced, the main character is far from perfect, you really feel his alienation. London and the people he meets there are convincingly drawn.

There is a very great deal that grows out of this immigrant saga; it's nothing less than one would expect out of Ms. Tremain. Our hero, Lev, leaves an impoverished Russian town for the glitz and glamor of London. Eventually he shows good aptitude in food service and dreams of opening a high-end

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restaurant back in his home town.

In London he learns about good product and good service, two things that have been lacking back home. He teaches as well. Those around him always come to like and admire him; he's a credit everywhere he goes. He finds and loses love; he earns a big enough settlement to seed his dream restaurant. So the road home leads through the lessons of London so Lev ("levitate"?) can return to his roots.

We have memorable secondary characters here: the ruthless London restaurateur who comes to respect Lev, the shallow love interest, the wild-man taxi-driver/entrepreneur in Russia. Tremain gives us her warm, bright humanity and her wisdom here. She continues to be one of my very favorite authors.

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Modern day protagonist Lev, leaves his home in Eastern Europe to find work in London, so he can send money home to his mother and daughter. His dead wife Marina haunts his dreams. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to be in a foreign country with no money and speaking very little of the

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language, Lev's story spells it out as we follow him through his 18 month trial. The woman who sits next to him on the bus across Europe, Lydia, befriends him, then is disappointed that he doesn't respond to her romantic advances. At any rate, she helps him out of many situations and helps him find his first real job. There he falls for Sophie, who is the salad chef while he is the dishwasher. We follow him as he works his way up to salad chef, then Sophie dumps him and he loses his job and ends up going north to work on a vegetable farm picking asparagus. Here he develops his big dream in life, the thing he's been searching for: he will return to his home when he's saved up enough money to open a restaurant of his own. Back drop to all this is the development of Lev's friend back home, Rudy; his landlord, Christy Slane; JK Ashe, his first boss; the people at the nursing home; the Chinese boys on the farm and the underlying theme, Lev's home village will be underwater because the government is building a reservoir to bring much needed uninterrupted electricity to the area. Tremain produces a fantastic read.

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I'd only read one other novel by Rose Tremain, (Restoration), and this of course was quite different and I admire her for being able to change her focus.

I thought this would be bleak with the eastern European protagonist trying to make a new life in the UK and coming across prejudice and bad

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treatment everywhere.

Without being sentimental or naive about how such an economic migrant would fare, Tremain is even-handed: our 'hero' is a hard worker and takes some knocks but he comes through. An assortment of characters that he meets either at work or socially have time for him. There is something essentially 'good' about this man.

There is the interesting contrast with life in his eastern European homeland and his old taxi-driving pal.

There's an unbelievable twist near the end but generally I thought it a 'good read'.

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The tale of Lev, a middle aged Polish migrant worker, who comes to London after losing both his job and his wife, is both moving and funny. It's a marvellous take on modern Britain where foreign workers on scant wages toil away in the kitchens of posh restaurants in London and asparagus fields in

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Norfolk, whilst at the other end of the scale celebrity culture rules. Lev is a good man and a heroic hard worker. As he struggles to earn enough money to send home to his mother who looks after his little girl, he is helped by unexpected acts of kindness from a cast of diverse and entirely uncliched characters. Beautifully written, THE ROAD HOME is an uplifting read and highly recommended.

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This is another book that I just happened upon while looking through the new acquisitions shelves at the library. It just caught my eye, and I checked the reviews before checking it out
This is the story of Lev, who goes to England from his home in an Eastern European country to find work when he

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loses his job in a lumber yard because all the trees have been cut down. He apparently justs sets off with no planning at all about what he will do or where he will stay when he gets there. This seemed unlikely to me, since he is generally a reasonable person. His life in England starts hard but eventually he gets some help to find a job and a place to live and ends up working hard to raise the money that enables him to return home and try to make a new life for himself, his family and his friends.
I enjoyed the book a lot. The only drawback for me was when Lev became somewhat violent. It seemed unprecedented, but then the author mentions that he has a history of anger control issues, that he was trying to keep under control in England. It would have helped me understand his character and his actions if this had been brought out earlier. (Or, maybe I missed it?)

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I was fortunate enough to stumble across this beautifully written book: a story of loss, loneliness and hope. I loved the characters - even the less-than-lovable ones - and often stayed up reading late into the night. Tremain is truly an exceptional author: one who both can write brilliantly and

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tell a good story.

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After losing his job and his wife, Lev leaves his little daughter with his mother and sets off for London to find work and support his family. By a lucky chance, he meets a woman on the bus who helps him find a job after a brief period of homelessness. Working in the kitchen of an elite restaurant,

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Lev learns that he loves to cook and carefully observes the chef and other workers to glean their skills. Through a relationship with his co-worker and a path to success in his new career, Lev begins to understand the wider world while growing to appreciate and love his home even more.

I felt a little uncertain about this book while I was reading it and I still do now. I’m not quite sure how to review it because it’s one of those books that I liked but didn’t really like that much. The best part, clearly, was Lev’s sense of accomplishment and his ambition once he realized what he really wanted out of his life. I love to read about ambitious, goal-oriented, determined people. Obviously life gets in the way sometimes, but I can identify with them the best. Unfortunately, however, Lev also seems to have a somewhat ignorant or cruel streak towards women. He does not want a relationship after his wife, so he rebuffs one woman, but then he finds another, decides he’s in love with her, and ends up treating her quite badly when things don’t end the way he expects. The girl is partly at fault for leading him on, but all of his relationships with women bothered me.

I did like the entire theme of home running through this novel. Even when Lev makes a groove for himself in London, he still misses the people and the place that is his home. Eventually he realizes that it’s the people and not the place itself, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to do his best for his home country and making a difference for his family. The title is really well chosen; even though Lev starts out leaving home, the entire novel is at the core about his journey returning and how he’s going to get there as a more successful man than when he left.

I’m still a little on the fence about whether to recommend this book or not. It is one of those difficult reads that falls in the middle, that I know I’m supposed to love but I didn’t manage it. I think if this review intrigues you, the book is probably still worth investigating.

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