A review by poachedeggs
The Road Home by Rose Tremain

3.0

I'd been wanting to read Rose Tremain for a while - an extract from one of her books was used for an unseen passage in the O-level, and I found the prose quite hypnotic (the passage was about a girl having to pick up stones for her farmer father). But this was quite a let-down. Lev, the Eastern European immigrant, is quite an unlikeable character -

Spoiler

I mean, he actually rapes his ex-girlfriend (who's no angel either, but still!!) in one part of the book, and before that, nearly strangles her in a public (concert) venue!

and yet we are supposed to sympathise with his travails.

I understand that Tremain is trying to make the point that we are all human, that no one is totally good or bad, blah blah, but these lessons felt a little heavy-handed, and the characters don't seem too three-dimensional. Every time something momentous happened, I couldn't quite reconcile it with my understanding of what they were like.

Spoiler

(Seriously, Lev goes to London for a few months and becomes a master chef?? And volunteers in an old folks' home?)

Some of the secondary characters are written better - e.g. Rudi, Lev's foul-mouthed, loud best friend.