The Road Home: From the Sunday Times bestselling author

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Join now to access our Study Guides library, which offers chapter-by-chapter summaries and comprehensive analysis on more than 5,000 literary works from novels to nonfiction to poetry. This is a book full of great characters, which tells the story of both Lev’s present, and his recent past, and takes us with him as he plans his future. Lev works in a variety of restaurants and take aways and for a brief while on the land in East Anglia. I maintained my interest throughout, though it probably could have been shortened without losing much. London holds the alluring possibility of friendship, sex, money and a new career and perhaps a new sense of belonging.

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

Kitchen assistant Simone's irreverent menus for the old-people's home made me laugh aloud for several minutes. The pull of his family and friends back home is always there, and as he strives to improve his life, learning new skills, we learn of what his life had been, and why he felt he had to leave it behind. Behind him loom the figures of his dead wife, his beloved young daughter and his outrageous friend Rudi.

At Lydia's invitation, he goes to a concert at the Festival Hall, but is forced to flee when his new mobile phone goes off in the expectant silence just as the conductor, for whom Lydia is working, takes the podium. Lesley McDowell, in a review for The Independent, wrote that Tremain consistently and accurately captured the isolation of Lev and other immigrants. 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. She introduces him to a few different areas of British society, allowing Tremain to satirize contemporary British life.

The Road Home by Rose Tremain | Goodreads The Road Home by Rose Tremain | Goodreads

Through Lev's eyes, we see London as the incomer views it and it is not an attractive sight, its inhabitants obsessed by status and success. In 2009, she donated the short story The Jester of Astapovo to Oxfam's " Ox-Tales" project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors.Then he got out and opened the trunk and took out one of the three remaining bottles of vodka from the straw and told Rudi to turn off the engine, and as the engine died the wiper blades made one last useless arc, then lay down, like two exhausted old people fallen end to end beside a skating rink.

The Road Home by Rose Tremain | Book Club Discussion The Road Home by Rose Tremain | Book Club Discussion

In this instance, the central character is Lev, an unemployed father from eastern Europe, who travels to London to seek work.

I found it a really powerful book and although this is the first of Tremain's that I have read, it certainly won't be the last. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page. Most face harsh treatment from gangmasters and ruthless employers who want to squeeze as much from them as possible. Truly an incredible book about a man who overcomes each and every obstacle and never loses his focus.

Significant Cigarettes | Summary and Analysis – Litbug

She was afraid that this might be the only view she sees every day till her death, and she decides to quit her job and leave. This novel tells the story of Lev who leaves his home country and like so many others is heading west. There he meets Sophie, who works in the kitchen at the restaurant and they embark on a tempestuous relationship.Wonderful book with plenty to think about and plenty to say about working classes, immigration, celebrity culture and real people. Lev is forced to take a job as an asparagus picker in the English countryside, where he befriends some migrant laborers from China.