The Road Home by Rose Tremain

Lev is an immigrant from the unspecified borders of the EU (There is a Baryn in Ukraine). Still mourning for his wife and without a job at home following the closure of the saw mill (they've chopped down the last tree) he comes to the UK to work and to find money and a life for what remains of his family.

Tremain captures something so lost and longing in Lev that I found this book heartbreaking to read. It has a profound sadness to it; the isolation of the lonely when surrounded by others. Specifically others who have lives, who appear to be leading them whilst all around you are dulled and made dumb by their very vitality.

Lev, who despite help and friendship, seems to wander through the pages of his life misunderstood because he himself is lost. Lev, who is remembered by those he struggles to hold on to, and who provides hope to others without ever really understanding it, is a character who eventually discovers echoes of himself in others and remembers enough to look to the future.

There is a scene in this story so wrenching that I burst into tears in the middle of my commute and had to stop reading lest I started blubbering like a child. Sure, I'm a father with a daughter the same age as Maya, his own child, and so I can identify with that, but Tremain's writing is fluid, caring and gentle without ever recoiling from the casualness with which we use each other.

This is a fantastic book and will remind you of your humanity.