A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe


I will start by saying that my book club recently read A Terrible Kindness and I was the only one (of 9) who didn’t absolutely love it. Maybe it was just the wrong time for me but I’m afraid I didn’t enjoy it & struggled to finish. The story was good, the writing was good but overall it was just a little …twee. Sorry.

Many thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

How do I start to describe what this incredible book gave to me and made me feel? This is a poignant and heartfelt story centred on the 1966 Aberfan disaster. A young man, newly qualified as an embalmer volunteers to give his services, a terrible kindness, to the village. He has 2 main gifts, one as an embalmer, the other as a chorister: both were desperately needed during this tragic time. Terrible nightmares and flashbacks haunt his future, which impact on his decisions and relationships.

I was only 10 years old when this disaster happened but have carried the memory with me. Thank you Jo Browning Wroe for writing this much needed book. It unlocked a poem I’ve held within me and wanted to write for so many years. Finally it is done.

I cannot imagine the sorrow felt by parents and families who lost loved ones when happiness was buried that day but communities are strong. Grief can allow hope to enter in and flourish.

Thank you Net Galley for an advance copy of this book.

It’s took me a while to get into this book but I’m glad I kept at it.

You can’t help but love William. He’s a lovely man that you just want to be happy. He goes through a lot of hard times during his life, making you pray for a happy ending for him.

I never thought I’d read a book about embalmer’s and choir’s. I’m surprised at how much I enjoyed it in the end.

A beautifully written and deeply moving book, based upon the unthinkable tragedy that happened to the small mining town Aberfan in October 1966.

Stunning! Powerful! Emotional. Utterly wonderful!!

It's very difficult to review this book other than to say it is one of those stories that sticks with you, the characters become people you feel like you know and it packs those gut wrenching emotional moments in with style and complete sensitivity.

It's a story of regrets and reconnections, the art of forgiving and those little acts of kindness that may go unnoticed by many but to the recipient means the world! I was utterly spellbound as the story unfolded, set against the backdrop of the awful tragedy of Aberfan, showing the impact on the families involved alongside that of the wider community. It's a story about making peace with others and, more importantly, with yourself and it was just the most beautiful book... if you've not read it already, what are you waiting for??!!

Such a beautifully written book and emotional storyline. The parts covering the awful Aberfan disaster were quite harrowing yet they set the scene for the rest of the book perfectly. A very moving story and one that will stay with me for some time to come.
Highly recommend.
Many thanks to Faber & Faber and NetGalley for the review copy.

William enters the family undertaking business, and has only just completed his studies when an appeal goes out for embalmers to go to Aberfan, where the primary school has just been buried by a landslip. He volunteers, little realising how this event will affect his future life and his relationships.
Flashbacks to his musical childhood as a scholarship choirboy are interspersed with the unfolding story of William’s life, and his relationships with his widowed mother, his uncle and his partner, his wife and his best friend from his school days.
I was totally gripped by this novel and rooted for William throughout, willing him at times to make other decisions. Characterisation is deft, detailed and sympathetic, the cast likeable and credible with their only too human flaws which the reader, as an outsider, is able to understand and contextualise.
This is a mesmerising novel, with a protagonist immersed in a profession that most of us give little thought to. I will be recommending it to all my fellow booklovers.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A great read, full of insights. Interesting characters, a great story. I felt enlightened when I finished the ook. A good read.

This is a book full of heart, and emotion. It explores how experiencing harrowing events can cast huge shadows over our lives and the joys we will allow ourselves. In this instance it is one young man's experiences as a newly qualified emblamer helping at the Aberfan disaster coupled with the death of his father that lays the bricks for his turmoil. But it is much more than that. It is about how traumatic events can cause you to abandon the things you love - in this case, music.

The characters are vivid and believable and the emotions raw. A very impressive piece of fiction.

Heartbreaking and wonderfully written.

I went into this book with no expectations and I was simply blown away. It starts with William, a young embalmer who goes to assist at the Aberfan disaster, and I thought it was going to be predominantly about the disaster. However, it is more focused on William and the effect that this horrendous experience has on the rest of his life, including his relationships with others.

The characters are so well written and I connected with their plight on a very real level. It is emotional but not gratuitously so. The writer handles the topic with care and sensitivity and the end result is an excellent book.

This book is absolutely brilliant. The descriptions of the awful events at Aberfan and the profound effect on those who dealt with the aftermath are so real, you feel like you're there experiencing it alongside them. I found this book funny in parts and very sad in others. The characters of William, Gloria and Martin jump off the page and I felt like I was living their lives along with them. I couldn't put this book down and I urge you to read it.

The story begins with the Aberfan disaster in the 60s when a landslide buries a school. I was a child at the time and remember my parents being distressed on hearing the news of this. William Lavery had just graduated from embalming school and volunteers to go to the site and help with preparing the children for identification by their parents. Those first chapters are pretty harrowing, and the author deals with the subject sensitively and with great compassion.

We then follow the story of how William ends up in this situation, from his childhood and many traumas. The story is really all about love, relationships and how you care for people. William makes some unfortunate choices in his life, and the scars of Aberfan run deep.

A lovely story, of pain, kindness, forgiveness and redemption, and the importance of forgiving yourself. Thank you to NetGalley and Faber and Faber Ltd for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was poignant, insightful, and encouraged self-reflection, which I always enjoy. I think the tragedy at Aberfan was handled sensitively by the author, and this book could serve as a jumping-off point for deeper learning. Thank you for the ARC!

I found the main character to be a bit irritating and I did not like the fact that the author chose Aberfan as the setting. I found this a bit insensitive.

This exquisite debut tells the story of star chorister William Lavery as he makes his way in the world, having followed in his late father’s footsteps and joined the family business as an embalmer, graduating his course with top marks. During celebrations with his classmates, the call goes out for help: it is October 1966, and news has broken of the tragic landslide smothering the small mining village of Aberfan. An ever-mounting death toll means there is an urgent need for embalmers to help with the bodies of the young children killed. Newly graduated William immediately offers his service, and is forever altered by what he experiences in Wales – both by the scale of the loss, and the raw humanity of those left behind.

The rest of the story sees William’s tale unfold further: his past as a young chorister at a Cambridge college chapel, his close relationship with his widowed mother – who is desperate for him to pursue a career in music and not join the family undertakers – and the intense friendship with fellow chorister Martin. All of these are perfectly true-to-life in complexity, but it is in the quiet moments that this book truly soars. The fine detail with which the horrors of the Aberfan tragedy are rendered, making them even more heartbreaking; the gentle, domestic scenes of William and his landlord’s daughter Gloria having cocoa together. These all reinforce the love and connections that support this man through the lifelong impact of the trauma he experiences in Wales, and the loss of his father at such a young age.

Cambridge is perfectly depicted, as you would hope from an author who lives in our city. The classics are all present: The Copper Kettle hosts William and his mother’s catch-ups, and Fitzbillies buns feature throughout, as do the timeless and strangely sentient college chapels – but there are also nods for insiders. Mill Road is perfectly described as the ‘guts’ of Cambridge; the low wall outside King’s is a place to stop and rest; the ‘thwock’ of tennis balls on the courts by the river on Jesus Green a transportive sound.

Even the title plainly lays out the two-sided nature of life. That it’s possible to both hate and love someone in the same moment – to never want to see them again, yet also desire to see no one else. It shows that in the midst of heart-wrenching sorrow, there can be shimmering moments of hope, and that the only way to know true love is to bravely face the terrifying prospect of losing it. We might never know the people whose lives we affect – we can only try to do the right thing, with kindness. A heart-stopping must-read that will see you looking up times for Evensong, or at the very least, putting some choral music on your playlist.

This book has been written with such sensitivity, given the nature of the subject. A very moving story, that I would recommend.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

This book follows William Lavery’s life. The reader first meets him in 1966, when 19 year old Wiiliam, a newly qualified embalmer, volunteers to travel to Aberfan to help and prepare the bodies of the victims for burial. What he witnesses there leaves a permanent scar which will shape his future life. William vows to himself that he will never have children of his own. For years after the tragedy he is plagued by flashbacks and nightmares of what he saw at Aberfan.

His estranged mother, Evelyn, lives nearby Aberfan, but William refuses to see her. Why? I got the impression that even before the Aberfan tragedy, William was already a scarred person. I wasn’t wrong.

The book goes back to William’s earlier years and the reader finds out more about William’s childhood. His father Paul had a twin brother Robert and the two of them were friends with Howard. The three men (who liked to called themselves ‘The Three Musketeers’) ran an undertaking business Lavery & Sons. Things were going well until William’s father died of cancer.

When William was ten, he was accepted as a chorister (or probationer) for the Cambridge Choir. He had an extraordinary talent, which was quickly acknowledged. While at Cambridge he met Martin Mussey, who described himself as having a ‘good voice, but awful attitude’. The boys quickly become friends.

Few years later, something happens during one of the performances, resulting in William quitting the choir, moving in with Uncle Robert and Howard, and ceasing all contact with his mother. He decides he wants to be an embalmer and work for the family business. What occurred between him and his mother?

You’ll have to read this book for yourselves to find out. I don’t want to write too much about it as it will spoil it for you.

It is a beautifully written book and it left me profoundly sad at times. I felt for William, he lost his father very young, and his mother’s insecurities and jealousy didn’t help the matter. Having said so, William annoyed me from time to time, as he had people in his life that wanted to help him: Uncle Robert, Gloria, and Martin. As I was reading, I was thinking that he didn’t want to accept any help at all. People around him were kind to him, and yet he couldn’t be kind to himself.

Overall, it is a poignant and thoughtful read. I recommend it.

Thank you to the publisher Faber Books for accepting my NetGalley request to read and review this book.

The disaster at Aberfan on the 21st of October 1966 left a mark on many in the UK and resonates with those born long after the event. One aspect I hadn’t really considered before was what happened to the bodies after they were pulled from the wreckage but before the funerals took place. This novel tells the story of one of the embalmers involved in that part of the events and how his life was impacted in the years that followed.

William Lavery is a newly qualified embalmer, about to begin his work in the family firm, who has been taken to a prestigious dinner as a celebration of his success by his uncle and his uncle’s partner. After receiving official recognition of his achievements at an unprecedented early age, an announcement is made that volunteer embalmers are required by the village of Aberfan where an overwhelming number of bodies are being recovered from the school that was buried by a landslide. William immediately volunteers and sets off with a number of companions, most of them previously unknown to him.

Unprepared for what he is to see and experience, William sets to work preparing the tiny bodies for their parents to identify. As he continues, with minimal breaks, the bodies brought to him are increasingly broken, and he and his fellow embalmers, along with some of the adult survivors, have a much harder job to enable identification without causing further distress to their families. At last, all the bodies are ready to be buried, but William is now also broken, both mentally and emotionally. He calls his fiancée to break off their engagement, knowing that she wants to start a family almost as soon as they are married, while he now feels that he could never bring a child into the world after all that he has seen.

William returns to Aberfan some days later to witness the funerals, and, still reeling from his experiences, begins to review his memories of the events that led to him becoming an embalmer. At the age of ten, William was a latecomer to the world of Cambridge choristers, but was quickly befriended by a boy of his own age, Martin, who had an excellent singing voice but was also an accomplished prankster. William soon surpasses Martin’s abilities as a singer and is chosen to perform the pivotal piece at an Easter service. However, his desire to please everyone and to reunite his widowed mother with his father’s twin brother ruins the big moment. William leaves the school and joins the family funeral firm, becoming estranged from his mother and discovering a new calling.

We follow William through secondary school and his external training to become an embalmer and learn how he met his fiancée, and then watch how their relationship began. Following his time in Aberfan, William loses his way, but a chance meeting with an old friend leads to his return to Cambridge, where he finds a new calling and a chance at redemption through helping others.

I loved this book. The characters were flawed, but ultimately real, and while some of the surprises experienced by the characters seemed quite predictable to me, I could understand how they might seem to be unexpected to them. I definitely plan to revisit this book time and again, no matter how sad it makes me in places, and I’m keen to see what else the author has to offer us.

This was a slow burner for me: I loved the start set around the mining disaster but once the book jumped back to Williams school years I found it all a bit slow and I nearly did not carry on. However a fellow Netgalley reading friend encouraged me to continue and I am so glad I did. this is a real emotional journey, a simple but lovely story, based on really genuine characters. I am sure this would be perfect for reading groups

Both a tragic event - handled sensitively - and a profession not often explored in fiction and very well written.