Jo Browning-Wroe

"'I remember them,' the woman says, 'a terrible job. A terrible kindness they did for us. Something none of us wanted to think about.'"

A Terrible Kindness opens with William Lavery attending an event for embalmers. He's newly qualified and is joining the family business. It's clear embalming is a vocation for gentle William, one where he can show one final act of kindness and care to a person. However, very quickly he is put to the test when he volunteers to go to Aberfan and help with the show more embalming of those who died in the coal mine landslide. It's not often a book sets me off crying in the first few pages but that's what happened here as William has to deal with the unthinkable and tragic loss of a community's children.

Bookended by sections about Aberfan and its effect on William are sections on William's time at Cambridge as a chorister and his early life as an embalmer. There's so much relevant background to William's life and what's so skilful about the writing is the way Jo Browning-Wroe unfolds it layer by layer until the whole picture is clear.

This is an incredible book and one that I will never forget. This kind of book doesn't come along very often and when it does it's breathtaking. The writing is so beautifully evocative. Even a passage where William remembers the drawer at home that contained the napkins his mother has brought to school, and the items that nestled alongside them was so real it brought a lump to my throat. It's full of the little moments that make up a life, each important in its own way. Small acts of kindness mean so much but it's a long time until William can accept that not everything is cut and dried.

There are two pieces of music interwoven through the story with such meaning. The author made them special and brought them to life to such an extent that they will always bring this book to mind if I hear them. There's a melancholy to them that chimes perfectly with the themes of the book.

I don't think anything I could say would do justice to just how wonderful A Terrible Kindness is. It's an outstanding debut, one that I started and finished reading in tears. It's extraordinarily moving, a story of family, loss and friendship amidst the worst that life can throw at you. show less

In October 1966, the small town of Aberfan in Wales, suffered a terrible tragedy when, after days of rain, a pile of spoils from the local coal mines slid in a slurry down the hillside into the town, taking down everything in its way, including the local school. 116 children and 28 adults were buried under the piles.

It took days to recover the bodies and the importance at that time of the embalmers cannot be overstated. They worked tirelessly to embalm the bodies after the grueling task of show more presenting devastated parents with the evidence that their child was among the lost. Jo Browning Wroe chose this setting for her enormously compelling and tragic novel.

Recently graduated embalmer, William Lavery, is asked to go to Aberfan to help and he accepts the challenge. He comes from a family of embalmers and funeral directors but his real love, nurtured by his mother and the Cambridge Choir she managed to get him into, is music and especially the singing of Allegri's 'Miserere'.

"It's a high wire act, this solo, like floating above a canyon. Getting up there isn't the problem; William can get to an F, never mind a C. The problem is holding the G in perfect pitch, rock steady, without cracking or fading while all the parts below are changing. Allegri's 'Miserere'. It still thrills him how his breath, his voice, can fill the chapel, soaring up to its high ceiling, piercing the silence, or slicing through other voices. And when he's a soloist, there's the thrill of knowing the others' voices are there to frame and magnify his own. It's magic. Pure magic." (Page 124)

Those are the two different threads of William's life that are woven together brilliantly in the novel, the Aberfan tragedy and the story that is William's life, both filled with challenges and sadness but the author handles all with aplomb and beautiful prose. This is historical fiction at the height of its powers, able to convey to the reader the horror of one particular event and its eventual impact on one individual, who is also fighting other demons. Wonderfully done and plenty of opportunities for tears. I played Allegri's 'Miserere' in the background while I read and it's just as beautiful as described. I'll remember this book for a long time and what more can we hope for as readers. show less

From the glitz and glamour of a black-tie dinner hosted by the Institute of Embalmers where he nervously awaits mention for his outstanding examination results to the heart-breaking reality and human tragedy of the immediate aftermath of the Aberfan disaster in a matter of hours as William Laverly responds to an emergency appeal for volunteer embalmers made in the after-dinner speech.
The retrieval of the bodies from the mountainous pile of slag, the covering and piling up of the bodies in show more the chapel, the cleaning of the bodies in preparation for identification, the embalming and placing of the bodies into tiny coffins are described with great compassion and sensitivity without sparing the slightest detail.
In the cold, the dark and the rain amidst the indefatigable, feverish shovelling of the fathers and despairing gathering of the devasted mothers we are also made aware that 19 year old William has underlying issues concerning his mother, choral music, his dear friend Martin and the death of his father.
Aberfan, Cambridge Choir, Family Business, Midnight Choir, Aberfan.
A beautifully written story of hopes and expectations, disappointments and misunderstandings, insecurities and fears where all the characters, situations and experiences, from boarding school dormitories to student lodgings, embalming rooms to the choir stalls of Cambridge, homemade biscuits to abandoned roast dinners are made so real that you can’t avoid being part of William’s journey.
Like it or not I now have a graphic knowledge of the embalming process and the urge to listen to Allegri’s Miserere.
A great read. show less

Newly qualified embalmer William is at a dinner when news comes through that there has been a disaster in South Wales and embalmers are needed to process the dead. William immediately volunteers to help and drives to Aberfan. What he experiences there will cause him to reflect on his life and make decisions that will affect his future.
This is quite a divisive read and I read it for a book club meeting which is probably what made me finish it! The writing about Aberfan and the effects of the show more disaster there are quite beautifully written and very moving. The section on William's life in Cambridge is good but, for me, it stops there. I found William incredibly self-centred and a frustrating character, this spoiled several sections of the book for me. show less