The Road Home
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Review
'Luminous talent for the fusion of the extraordinary and the commonplace' --Sunday Telegraph
'...bravely imaginative, deeply moving, surprising, invigorating and satisfying' --Independent
'shows the reality of the immigrant experience in a manner that is often tender, but never trite'
--Irish Times
'...bravely imaginative, deeply moving, surprising, invigorating and satisfying' --Independent
'shows the reality of the immigrant experience in a manner that is often tender, but never trite'
--Irish Times
Sunday Telegraphy, Sally Cousins
`Rose Tremain touches a raw contemporary nerve in this well-judged tale'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
405 of 420 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Rose Tremain can, it seems, do just about anything. Each one of her books is utterly different from the last, each creates a detailed and authentic world for her characters and their quests.
In The Road Home, Tremain tells the story of Lev, an Eastern European migrant worker who has left his village and travelled to England so that he can finance a better life for his mother and daugther. He takes with him his grief for his dead wife. There is an almost fairytale-like quality to Lev's chance encounters and where they lead him, although, that said, they also feel natural and possible; Tremain has always been good on the essential randomness of experience.
Lev's London is awash with money, celebrity and complacency - an ugly picture of the way we live now - but there is nothing polemical about the book. The world Tremain creates feels real, and she allows her characters to negotiate it, and make their compromises with it, in a way that is both convincing and very poignant. There is also a rich vein of humour that runs through the book, much of which comes from the stories about and conversations with Lev's friend Rudi, who has stayed back in the village.
The 1983 Granta list of best young British novelists famously includes: McEwan, Rushdie, Pat Barker, Amis, Graham Swift. Tremain was among this group but in my view remains a little underrated. Both Music & Silence and Restoration have found critical acclaim and broad readerships, but The Colour - a fine, fine book - did less well, and The Way I Found Her is a book far less well known than it should be. Almost alone amongst that stellar group of 1983, she hasn't yet put a foot wrong.
In The Road Home, Tremain tells the story of Lev, an Eastern European migrant worker who has left his village and travelled to England so that he can finance a better life for his mother and daugther. He takes with him his grief for his dead wife. There is an almost fairytale-like quality to Lev's chance encounters and where they lead him, although, that said, they also feel natural and possible; Tremain has always been good on the essential randomness of experience.
Lev's London is awash with money, celebrity and complacency - an ugly picture of the way we live now - but there is nothing polemical about the book. The world Tremain creates feels real, and she allows her characters to negotiate it, and make their compromises with it, in a way that is both convincing and very poignant. There is also a rich vein of humour that runs through the book, much of which comes from the stories about and conversations with Lev's friend Rudi, who has stayed back in the village.
The 1983 Granta list of best young British novelists famously includes: McEwan, Rushdie, Pat Barker, Amis, Graham Swift. Tremain was among this group but in my view remains a little underrated. Both Music & Silence and Restoration have found critical acclaim and broad readerships, but The Colour - a fine, fine book - did less well, and The Way I Found Her is a book far less well known than it should be. Almost alone amongst that stellar group of 1983, she hasn't yet put a foot wrong.
283 of 296 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I have always admired the award-winning author Rose Tremain, but her new novel THE ROAD HOME is the one that has given me the most pleasure. 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 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.
55 of 59 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I enjoyed this novel so much that when I was three quarters of the way through I went back to the beginning and started again! Tremain is an excellent writer. Her prose is full of colourful images and she has an eye for the quirky, the absurd, which makes for an entertaining read. In this tale the line between tragedy and comedy is finely walked. Lev is a beguiling hero - in many ways brave and admirable, but also flawed. His story is sad, sometimes brutal, but always handled with compassion. This novel could easily be read as a treatise on the plight of the immigrant worker - but it is more complex than that. Ultimately it is about the irrepressiblity of the human spirit and I loved it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
lovely gentle book
This book is about a man who travels to England as a legal immigrant from Europe looking for work. It was our book club choice and I didn't think it would be my kind of book at... Read more
Published 24 days ago by Eileen Stafford
Stereotyped rubbish
The plot is unconvincing, the characters stereotypes and its hard to feel for the protagonist who rapes his ex girlfriend. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Ms. Mary Fletcher
Wonderful
This book will make you laugh and it will make you cry. It will make you think about the society that we live in. It is a wonderful book.
Published 3 months ago by EL EMMO
A good read, but...
The Road Home caught my interest from the opening pages, as economic EU migrant Lev makes the long bus journey to England, in search of work. Read more
Published 4 months ago by CJ
Beautifully written
This is a beautifully written, sensitive and highly informed contemporary novel about the personally devastating hardships of immigration that every politician should be made to... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Reader
A Masterpiece
Tremain's prize-winning novel is an unsentimental superbly-written account of what life in London is like for Eastern European immigrants. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Kate Hopkins
Oh dear oh dear
The Road Home tells the story of Lev, a migrant worker from Eastern Europe who travels to Britain in the hope of working and earning enough money to support his mother and... Read more
Published 6 months ago by J. Willis
Insulting and patronising
The story starts with a character called Lev travelling to England by coach from an unnamed Eastern European country. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Bogdan Tiganov
An insight into the lives of those who come to work here.
Life is not a walk in the park for all the immigrant workers who come to live here. Maybe some of their dreams do come true. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Dunning
great read
I can definitely relate to lots of stories in this book... it's a moving story of a foreigner (just like me) who was struggling with everyday life in London.. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Edixxx
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