On his interminable bus journey across Europe, bound for London, Lev practises his English: 'Excuse me for troubling you.' 'Do you have anything you could give me?' 'I am legal.' Lev's home country has just entered the EU and now he, like so many others, is heading west. His wife, Marina, has died of leukaemia, his five-year-old daughter, Maya, is living with her grandmother and 42-year-old Lev, a former lumberyard worker, now one of Eastern Europe's long-term unemployed, is travelling to London to find work. Migrant workers make a huge contribution to life in Britain, keeping public services, industry and agriculture running. Yet they are generally depicted in the media as a burden on society – “undesirables” who clog up resources and hog public services. Death of a Partner – The other theme that the chapter focuses on is the experience of losing one’s partner, through Lev’s memories of his dead wife, Marina. Theirs was a loving marriage, and consequently, Lev is traumatised by her death, feeling guilty about being alive despite her death and not being able to face his own reflection. Significant Cigarettes | Characters

The Guardian Down but not out in latterday London | Books | The Guardian

Symbolism is a linguistic device that is used when one object represents another. Lev’s craving for a cigarette grows extremely strong, to the extent that ‘his hands grew fidgety’. This reflects his anxiety at leaving his home and travelling to a new country. He craves for it to go well but it is Lydia who is calm: ‘I’m sorry, but there is no smoking allowed on this bus.’ She is apologising and more willing to please than Lev. structure Almost escapist literature, light and pleasant, with some dark corners - funny at times, somewhat predictable at others, less so at others, but flowing well and making you think every so often.

We meet Lev as he travels by bus, across Europe, on a journey that he hopes will take him towards new opportunities in London, and allow him to leave behind the grief and uncertainty that was his life in his own country. Lev is leaving behind the desolation of his village. The sawmill he worked at has closed down, because all the trees in the surrounding area have been cut down. This mirrors the devastation in his own life after his wife Marina dies of leukaemia. As he catches his own reflection in the window, Lev thinks about how he had avoided seeing his reflection since Marina’s death, not wanting to face himself for the guilt of having stayed alive despite the death of his beloved wife. Lydia asks him what kinds of work he can do, and he answers that he will do any work available, as he has a family waiting at home who needs the money to survive. England is his hope. Thomson, William (1819–1890), archbishop of York". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (onlineed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/27330. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) Despite slowly improving circumstances, and the fact that he is now able to send money home, Lev's conscience tugs at him: his daughter, who has lost her mother, is now worried that her father, too, will never return. Lev has, ironically, inflicted an experience of terrible loss on his small daughter. All too slowly, he becomes aware of this dilemma and, as he wrestles with it, as the novel approaches its climax.

The Road Home: From the Sunday Times bestselling author

Brownrigg, Sylvia (9 June 2007). "No place like home | Books". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 4 April 2022 . Retrieved 7 November 2008.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. Lev arrives in a dusty, midsummer city full of hope but things, however, do not start well. He suddenly realises that the money that he had saved to live off until he found work is nowhere near enough. In fact his first night in the city, spent in an Earl's Court B&B costs him what he had expected to last him a week. The next day he gets a 'job' delivering leaflets for a kebab shop, for which he's paid 2p a leaflet and sleeps on the street

Summary and reviews of The Road Home by Rose Tremain - BookBrowse Summary and reviews of The Road Home by Rose Tremain - BookBrowse

Dame Rose Tremain DBE FRSL (born 2 August 1943) is an English novelist, short story writer, and former Chancellor of the University of East Anglia. [1] Life [ edit ] As Lev sees the darkness follow the sunset, he remembers how in his village, Auror, “darkness had always arrived in precisely the same way, from the same direction…”. He tells Lydia about his village and the job that he had at the local sawmill until it closed down two years ago as they run out of trees to cut. His mother, his five-year-old daughter Maya, and he lived on his mother’s sole income from selling tin jewellery. While Lydia thinks that it is very resourceful, Lev tells her that it isn’t enough to sustain all of them. Schillinger, Liesl (31 August 2008). "Book Review | 'The Road Home,' by Rose Tremain". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 24 April 2022 . Retrieved 5 September 2008. This is not a perfect book but it is a very moving book that succeeds in forcing the reader to embrace a 40+ year old man who is on a journey to remake his life after the death of his wife. He leaves his young daughter in the care of his emotionally-distant mother in the cold and barren land of Eastern Europe post Communism.Rose Tremain has said that she was advised against making The Road Home“too glum.” How does she use humor to lighten Lev’s trials? Which scenes did you find particularly funny? Readers will become totally involved with his story, as he struggles with the mysterious rituals of “Englishness,” and the fashions and fads of the London scene. We see the road Lev travels through Lev’s eyes, and we share his the intimacy of his friendships, old and new; his joys and sufferings; his aspirations and his hopes of finding his way home, wherever home may be. He is a haunted character, passionate and selfish and very human. He doesn't act as he should sometimes, specially where women are concerned, and his flaws are exactly what make him such a believable character. So imperfect but so dear to the reader. The two characters are particularly contrasting. Lydia aspires to be a ‘translator’, whilst Lev is just hopeful for work. As is the experience of the majority of the immigrant population, Lev is sceptical of his destination and is emotionally attached to his own country, which he thinks will continue to be the place where his heart is. The constant need for a cigarette, while obviously a result of his addiction, is also reflective of his underlying anxiety as people who are dependent on a substance usually feel the need to consume them during stressful situations. The momentary comfort of the cigarette is not only the sole source of comfort that he can hope for in this daunting journey, but it also provides him with a sense of familiarity, being one of the few remaining physical connections to his life in Auror.

The Road Home - Penguin Books UK

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. Gradually, Lev gets himself on his feet and so begins a peripatetic, occasionally comic, often traumatic, journey through London, which Tremain uses to illustrate broader themes. Lydia paused in her knitting. She held the 'jumper' up to her chest, to see how much further she had to go before casting off for the shoulder seam. She said: 'Now I'm interested in that journey. Did you reach your home?'

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All this tends towards accepting the notion that migrants can earn huge amounts of money through sheer hard work – and extreme good fortune in Lev’s case. Lev can return to his home country and realise his dreams in a society being transformed for the better by capitalism – although some people have to pay the price for that. Lev’s friend Rudi is a more lighthearted Eastern European who longs for the amenities of the West. In what ways do Lev and Lydia, too, seek pleasure? Considering Lev’s abiding love for his late wife, is his relationship with Sophie surprising to you? How is he conflicted about the liberties the urban West has to offer? Both Lev and his new friend Christy have lost loved ones. How does Rose Tremain emphasize their shared emotional state in chapter 12 when they take a visit to the seaside with Christy’s young daughter? What else do Lev and Christy have in common that indicates that their friendship is a solid one?