Even though her homogenisation of different nations isn’t unproblematic, Tremain’s admission that conversations with Polish migrants to the UK were ‘the most important’ part of her research makes a consideration of the novel in this context viable. Also, what’s particularly valuable about The Road Home is that it makes Lev the protagonist, not a secondary character in the dramas of British heroes, as most other stories of migration to the UK tend to do.
Indeed, Tremain’s novel truly centralises Lev: it keeps the reader close to his feelings and perceptions throughout. The experiences of this 42-year-old widower feel both specific and representative of wider patterns. We first meet him, for instance, in the middle of a journey that’s been undertaken by many: travelling across Europe on a cramped coach to London where he hopes to find work in order to send money back to his mother and daughter.
Cover of 'The Road Home' by Rose Tremain, photo: Chatto & Windus
The novel unfolds by juxtaposing Lev’s time in England – which encompasses homelessness and hunger, help and hindrance from others, and jobs as a leaflet-deliverer, kitchen assistant in a top restaurant, and asparagus-picker – with memories of his past. Tremain makes a point of showing how often Lev’s London life is affected by his interactions with other migrants, from the Arab kebab shop owner Ahmed who initially hires him, to the Dubliner Christy, who’s his first landlord and becomes a close friend. Another important figure is Lev’s compatriot, the translator Lydia, whom he meets on the coach journey, and who often helps him out in difficult moments.
Lev’s encounters with ‘native’ Brits include prejudice (he’s quickly dismissed as a ‘foreign nutter’ when he unwittingly intrudes into a gated ‘private garden’), curiosity, suspicion, and a love affair. Tremain particularly relishes outlining the ways in which Lev’s romantic ideas about the English are soon challenged by the realities he observes:
