The Road Home by Rose Tremain

This book has been massively popular and it won the Orange Broadband prize, so I was surprised to find myself picking up glitches. It deals with the topical theme of the experience of immigrants in the UK and with the battle for survival of the poor, so I was intrigued to read it.

The first thing that jarred was the viewpoint error on the first page, when Tremain blandly tells us that Lev is “handsome”. That’s just a niggle, but it's the sort of thing that shouldn’t creep into a book by one of our best-selling literary novelists. My bigger bone with it was the characterisation. The protagonist is supposed to be a labourer from a factory in Eastern Europe looking for work in the UK. Yet he comes across as implausible in this role. He is something of a philosopher. He doesn’t want sex, even though he hasn’t had it for ages (or is it just me that can’t relate to that?) He notices when his English boss is sexist towards a woman employee. Tremain seems to be using him to point out the flaws she sees in London and English culture and compare that unfavourably with the (unnamed) eastern European country where Lev grew up.

When he meets his new landlord, who is supposed to be a plumber, one of the first things they talk about is their daughters. Much of their conversation comes across as the sort of thing women would talk about, rather than working-class men: they sit around in mawkish discussion of love. The landlord uses dialogue that starts with words like “Nor”. That’s a word you don’t often hear on the lips of a plumber. Lev and his best friend do talk about a car, but they too spend a lot of time talking about love. Lydia, gives Lev, who is supposed to speak little English, a copy of Hamlet, for Christmas. This, I found ludicrous. His voice is inconsistent. On the same page he uses solecisms like, ‘I think to myself, this have no end’, and also the advanced construction of, ‘As you would expect, poor quality.’

Perhaps all this is okay and shows how Tremain creates sensitive characters and tries to break down stereotypes, but I wasn’t sure. It might reveal a romanticised view of these people, or worse still, a sort of superior position of a highly educated middle-class woman trying to associate with the characters. In other words, patronising. In either case, Lev’s character would be far more convincing as a woman.

Mostly the prose runs along with enviable ease, but just occasionally some of the writing was a little clunky. Chapter fifteen starts with a sequence that reads like first draft. Lev wakes, looking up at a face, and it is only later that he notices that the light is dazzling him. That would be the first thing he would notice. On the next page a whole list of sentences start with He, and there is the line “He had no idea”, repeated a few sentences after itself. Again, all of this might be deliberate, but it looks as if it was written in a hurry.

Tremain is vague about which country Lev comes from. One guesses it is Poland, as they had recently joined the European Union, and she credits Polish sources on the back (perhaps a quick chat with her cleaner). But it is not made explicit. Yet Lev makes many comparisons between his country and England. This allows Tremain to defamiliarise and criticise the UK, but that isn’t convincing unless the offending country is compared with a society that is actually better. It portrays a rosy view of some imagined Eastern European country where they appreciate art and music, discipline their children, sing songs and don’t make sexist comments about female co-workers. Are people less sexist in Poland? Not in my experience of working there.

Finally, the plot. At first it was all plausible, with Lev getting himself together with progressively better jobs and finding a home. Later it seem to drift into “one damn thing after another”. He goes off to the country and works on an asparagus farm and gets a hand job one drunken evening from two Chinamen. Then he comes back to London and none of this is mentioned again – the latent homosexuality theme isn’t picked up anywhere else. This might be another case of political correctness. Similarly, he gets mugged, and it comes across as a random event, a bit of filler and another chance to have a pop at London. Presumably muggings don’t happen in Lev’s imaginary Eastern European idle. Towards the end, when he needs to raise ten thousand pounds to start his own restaurant, he saves this money in one year, which comes across as convenient and unlikely.

There’s a lot to admire too. It’s only because this is such a good book and has affected so many people strongly that the faults shouted out at me. Some of the motifs are striking and memorable. The Diana card, the Tchevi and the electric blue fish. Tremain certainly creates a strong atmosphere and narrative momentum and I can see why the book is popular. Despite not believing in the characters I did find that I cared about them. If you suspend disbelief then many of the scenes are touching, in a sentimental sort of way. It works as a fairy tale.

With a serious bit of editing, this could be a really good book. Without that I wonder if anyone will read it in five years time.