In the wake of factory closings and his beloved wife's death, Lev makes his way from Eastern Europe to <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><ST1:CITY u1:st="on"><ST1:PLACE u1:st="on">London</ST1:PLACE></ST1:CITY></st1:place></st1:City>, seeking work to support his mother and his little daughter. After a spell of homelessness, he finds a job in the kitchen of a posh restaurant and a room in the house of an appealing Irishman who has already lost his family. Never mind that Lev must sleep in a bunk bed surrounded by plastic toys--he has found a friend and shelter. However constricted his life in England remains, he compensates by daydreaming of home, by having an affair with a younger restaurant worker, and by trading gossip and ambitions via cell phone with his hilarious friend Rudi, who, dreaming of the wealthy West, lives largely for his battered Chevrolet.<BR><BR>Homesickness dogs Lev, not only for nostalgic reasons, but because he doesn't belong, body or soul, to his new country--but can he really go home again? Rose Tremain's prodigious talents as a prose writer are on full display in THE ROAD HOME, and her novel never loses sight of what is truly important in the lives we lead.