The Road Home

British author Rose Tremain’s novel The Road Home (2007) follows Eastern European migrant Lev as he tries to make a life for himself in London. Tremain is one of Britain’s most prominent living novelists, best known for 1989’s Restoration. The Road Home was awarded the 2008 Orange Prize for Fiction.

The novel begins on a long-haul coach, heading from an unnamed Eastern European country to London. Lev begins chatting to the woman sitting beside him, Lydia, a fellow countrywoman. He tells her that he is from the tiny rural village of Auror. He used to work in a sawmill in the regional town of Baryn, but the mill closed when every tree had been felled, as no replanting had been done. Unable to find another job, Lev had sunk into depression, worsened by the recent loss of his beloved wife, Marina. He and his five-year-old daughter, Maya, were supported by his elderly mother, Ina, who made and sold tin jewelry, but the money was never enough, and Lev finally decided to emigrate. He hopes that in London he will be able to earn enough to send money home.

Touched by Lev’s story, Lydia gives him her phone number, telling him to call if he needs help. Lev sets out into the din of the city alone. He is astonished by the affluence he sees. So many people are overweight! Soon he realizes that the money he has brought will not last more than a few days.



A friendly Arab man—himself an immigrant—offers him a job delivering leaflets, but it pays so little that Lev cannot even afford to rent a bed in a shared room. Soon Lev is homeless, lugging his bag of belongings from doorway to doorway. The weather is cold, Lev is lightheaded with hunger, and he decides to call Lydia.

She is staying with friends, who agree to shelter Lev. They help Lev find a room in an apartment. His new landlord, Christy Slane, is another immigrant—this time from Ireland—and a plumber. Christy has lost his wife and can rarely see his daughter. He is sliding into alcoholism. Christy and Lev soon become firm friends.

Meanwhile, the British people Lev encounters are less hospitable.



Lev gets a job as a kitchen porter in an expensive restaurant, owned by famous chef G.K. Ashe. The work is backbreaking and poorly paid, but Lev embraces his opportunity and is rewarded with a promotion to vegetable-peeler when Ashe notices Lev’s hard work. Lev decides to learn as much as he can about the restaurant business.

As well as sending money home, Lev regularly calls his old friend Rudi, a taxi driver, who fills Lev in on developments in their struggling home country. Lev begins to dream of returning with enough money and Western knowledge to transform his small village.

At the restaurant, Lev begins a passionate sexual affair with a British worker, Sophie. She introduces him to a few different areas of British society, allowing Tremain to satirize contemporary British life. First, Sophie takes Lev to the Ferndale Heights, the care home for the elderly where she volunteers:



“Lev had asked her what she’d do there and she told him that she’d help prepare a Christmas meal and then they’d play games and have a sing-song. She said: ‘They’ll all get squiffy on Asti Spumante and float backwards in time, but I don’t care. When you’re old, nobody touches you, nobody listens to you – not in this bloody country. So that’s what I do: I touch and listen. I comb their hair. I play clapping games with them. That’s a laugh and a half. I hear about life in the post-war prefab or in some crumbling stately pile. I play my guitar and sometimes that makes them cry. My favorite person there is a woman called Ruby. She was brought up by nuns in India. She can still remember the convent school and her favorite nun, Sister Bendicta – every detail, every feeling.”

Soon Lev has developed a close friendship with Ruby Constad, Sophie’s favorite resident.

Sophie also introduces Lev to several figures from the London art world, including a Damien-Hirst-like artist and a satirical playwright. At the premiere of the playwright’s new work, Lev finds himself offended by the absurd posturing of the writer and the audience alike.



When G.K. discovers that Lev is sleeping with Sophie, he fires Lev, on the grounds that the workplace is no place for romance. Lev is forced to take a job as an asparagus picker in the English countryside, where he befriends some migrant laborers from China. In the cold, wet fields, Lev has an epiphany: he will save £10,000 to open a restaurant in Baryn.

He returns to London, where he gets a job in the kitchen at the Ferndale home and a second job in a Greek restaurant. He saves £7,000, and Ruby Constad gives him the rest. The novel ends as Lev returns to Baryn, the proprietor of a thriving restaurant.