The Road Home
A powerful story of migration, London and the search for belonging from the Sunday Times bestseller
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Widowed migrant Lev comes to London for work, hoping to earn enough to save the daughter and village he left behind.
Lev travels from Eastern Europe to Britain by coach, leaving behind his mother, his young daughter and the memory of his dead wife. He needs work, money and a way to imagine a future after the sawmill that sustained his village has closed.
London greets him with strangeness and possibility. He finds help from fellow migrant Lydia, work in kitchens and care homes, and a brief, intense relationship with a chef, Sophie. Yet while he learns about the city and begins to dream of opening a restaurant back home, his village is facing a new threat.
The Road Home is a compassionate, witty and clear-eyed story of migration, labour, exile, grief and belonging. From the Sunday Times bestselling author Rose Tremain, it speaks to readers looking for contemporary social realism and a humane story about starting again.
'Rose Tremain does not disappoint. As always, her writing has delicious, crunchy precision.' Observer
'A novel of urgent humanity' Sunday Telegraph
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tremain (Restoration) turns in a low-key but emotionally potent look at the melancholia of migration for her 14th book. Olev, a 42-year-old widower from an unnamed former east bloc republic, is taking a bus to London, where he imagines every man resembles Alec Guinness and hard work will be rewarded by wealth. He has left behind a sad young daughter, a stubborn mother and the newly shuttered sawmill where he had worked for years. His landing is harsh: the British are unpleasant, immigrants are unwelcome, and he's often overwhelmed by homesickness. But Lev personifies Tremain's remarkable ability to craft characters whose essential goodness shines through tough, drab circumstances. Among them are Lydia, the fellow expatriate; Christy, Lev's alcoholic Irish landlord who misses his own daughter; and even the cruelly demanding Gregory, chef-proprietor of the posh restaurant where Lev first finds work. A contrived but still satisfying ending marks this adroit migr 's look at London.
