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A Terrible Kindness

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Member Reviews

A Terrible Kindness is in contention for the best book I’ve read this year. In 1966 William, a newly qualified embalmer volunteers his services to the Aberfan community following the fatal landslide that buried a school and more. It’s an experience that, alongside his time as a young chorister in Cambridge, shapes his life for years to come. I loved the attention to detail - of training to be an embalmer, the music and references to Birmingham - the supporting characters in this book - William’s uncle Robert and his partner Howard in particular - but also the understanding of the importance and healing power of music and singing not only to William and Martin, but to the wider community.
With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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What a stunning book. I was drawn to it because it starts at Aberfan, and which cast a long shadow for any child growing up in South Wales in the 1960s and 70s, and because it wasn’t screaming a genre at me. It intrigued me and I wanted to dive in.
William Lavery is a newly qualified embalmer who volunteers his skills to help in the immediate aftermath of Aberfan. It is a part of disaster recovery we rarely consider and the flavour of the book is quickly revealed as it focuses just a little on the mechanics and a great deal on the emotions. You learn just enough of the nuts and bolts to be drawn into William’s world but perhaps it isn’t for the over-squeamish.
William’s is not a world shaped only by the terrible nightmares and flashbacks born from his experiences working on those children’s bodies and we soon learn his past holds its own mysteries and traumas. Piece by piece they are cleverly revealed, building William into one of the most fascinating fictional characters I have come across in recent years, always on a knife edge between genuine happiness and self-destruction.
It is a remarkable debut, full of clever intricacies and memorable characters, but never so over worked that William’s story is not centre stage. I hesitate to use the phrase ‘must read’, but I think losing yourself in this book would be time well spent.

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This is a beautifully written book that captivated me immediately. The opening scenes where the main character travels to help at Aberfan was a tough read but was very sensitively and subtly portrayed. As a reader, you are left with several questions about the main character, all of which are eventually answered as we delve into his history. I developed a real empathy for the character and was pleased to find that we got to find out what happened to him following Aberfan.
A beautiful and sensitivity written book

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A really moving read that follows a young embalmer and the effects that attending such a horrifying tragedy has on his life. I really enjoyed this and it is so well written. Highly recommended.

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This novel addresses some very difficult themes, but author Jo Browning Wroe, uses a deft touch and never strays into over-sentimentality. The book begins with William Lavery, our main character, at a dinner for embalmers. He has recently joined the family business and qualified with top marks. However, it is 1966, and the tragedy at Aberfan is unfolding, with elbalmers needed in the small town. Thrown into the deep end, William volunteers and we learn how this event marks his life as he helps deal with the bodies of the victims.

So, from the very beginning, we are aware that William has an unusual job but also that he does it well and that he is a kind, thoughtful young man, who wishes to give the victims, and their families, respect and to do his tasks with care. The author teases out our knowledge with William, as she goes backwards and forwards in the story. So we are aware that he has a difficult relationship with his mother, for example, but are unaware until later why this is. Through Cambridge, where William is a choristor, we meet his friend Martin, and we also learn of his love for Gloria, his relationships with his mother, his uncle and his uncle's partner, and of his decision to join the family firm.

There are some novels which are driven by plot, and others by character, and this is definitely in the latter category. William is a character the reader will come to care for, while also being very involved in his life and relationships. An excellent debut and I will certainly be looking out for more by this author. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

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A very different type of book to my usual reads, I really enjoyed this novel. I was totally engrossed and mesmerised by the book, and look forward to more from this author.

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Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This isn't the usual book I would pick up but the description intrigued me, especially after reading up on the very real tragedy, however the overall story in this book is very uplifting whilst dealing with what could be seen as a coming of age novel. There's many themes in this book ranging from death, grief, love and friendship.

The story also flips back to the main characters past and how some events in his life have shaped him to be the man he is today. One criticism is that sometimes the back and forth of the timeline was a bit jarring but overall this was an emotional read with the last chapter completely breaking me but it was worth every second and I look forward to seeing what future novels will come from this author.

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A Terrible Kindness is a novel that sparked my curiosity and that’s always a good starting point when choosing what to read. Woefully ignorant of the tragedy that forms the backdrop to Jo Browning Wroe’s debut I was prepared to have my eyes opened wide to immense pain and suffering and for my heart to break into a million tiny pieces. However there’s so many more layers to discover in this tale that blends grief, loss, inner turmoil and conflict with an abundance of love, kindness and hope. The novel’s central character is newly qualified embalmer William Lavery, who is just 19 when the Aberfan mining disaster occurs and it’s his decision to offer his services to this Welsh community that opens the first chapter of this truly beautiful piece of storytelling. Taking you from scenes of utter devastation and then weaving between William’s earlier family life and his childhood days as a chorister in Cambridge back to the present day this is a novel that celebrates many loves; that of music, of performing, of a profession and above all a love for his fellow human beings, whether that be in life or death.

Jo Browning Wroe gently guides you into the world of an embalmer detailing the intricacies of the work involved that is strangely fascinating rather than morbid. Her descriptions of these necessary but grim tasks are suffused with such tenderness, respect and dignity that you feel the utmost admiration for William whose presence provides a small token of comfort to the bereaved. The elegant,understated prose enables you to focus on this remarkable young man and his role in this tragedy that leaves him notably affected by all he has witnessed. William’s inability to process his emotions causing him to make some drastic life limiting decisions endears him to the reader, reminding us not only of his morally upright character and sensitive nature but how very young he is to be dealing with situations of grave magnitude. However as the author treads the path between the past and the present it’s clear there’s another hugely defining moment in William’s life as a chorister that still troubles him and it’s as if the events at Aberfan unlock memories and emotions he’s tried so hard to keep buried. It is the manner in which both sets of memories collide that encourages you to read on, eager to discover more about the music loving boy before he closes the door on that particular chapter of his life, hopeful that certain individuals can help mend this now broken man through their offers of love and friendship.

I was struck by how much depth and nuance there is to the storytelling and amazed that a novel could contain so much love and kindness. It’s tightly packed into every significant moment so instead of being maudlin it’s the complete opposite. More uplifting and joyous than you could hope to expect I found details of William’s family life, living in a less liberal era insightful and compelling. The tension that exists between his mother Evelyn and Uncle Robert is a recurring theme, the elephant in the room that blights William’s childhood but sooner or later deserves to be addressed. I absolutely loved the sections relaying William’s days as a chorister, especially his friendship with Martin which has to be a highlight of the novel for me. Music, specifically the popular Welsh song Myfanwy and Allegri’s Miserere plays an integral role, neither of which I was familiar with but a quick internet search rectified that problem! The association between music and memories is captured perfectly as too is its power to unite people and also heal.

Sometimes the hardest reviews to write are the ones for novels that have had the greatest impact on your soul. There’s a fear you’ll fail to convey the right tone or neglect to pinpoint the reasons why you feel compelled to convince fellow readers that this is a book they SHOULD read. I had no idea when I started this novel quite how absorbed I’d become by the beauty and compassion found within the musical element and the relationships that have such an impact on William throughout his childhood and beyond. The characterisation is superb and I felt deeply moved not only by the kindness William shows towards others but the kindness afforded to him at crucial stages in his life. This resonated strongly with me at a time when we’re encouraging everyone in a world where you can be anything to be kind. You’d be forgiven for imagining this novel to be overly sentimental which I can assure you it isn’t! I remained dry eyed for the majority of the book but there are moments that tip you over the edge and the emotionally charged ending was one of them. The floodgates opened as the final chapter closes in an exquisitely beautiful and hopeful manner so that out of darkness comes light and the possibility of happiness in the future. A Terrible Kindness has to be a serious contender for one of my favourite books of the year. Sometimes a novel has the ability to take you by surprise when you least expect it and this one certainly did that. Highly recommend.

My thanks as always to the publisher Faber and Faber and Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read in exchange for an honest review.

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JO BROWNING WROE
A Terrible Kindness
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‘Keep your head down and your heart hard. That’s your kindness.’
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SYNOPSIS
William is 19 years old, and a newly graduated embalmer, when he is called to his first job: Aberfan. Faced with the broken bodies of countless primary school children, William has all the physical skills he needs to perform his duty, but the emotional impact will stay with him forever.
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Torn between his mother’s dream for him to succeed as a choral singer, and his father’s legacy as an embalmer, William struggles to find his path in life, and through his own grief his choices sometimes hurt those closest to him.
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THOUGHTS
I loved reading about William’s time as a choir boy and will now forever associate Allegri’s Miserere with this book! That haunting, treble solo lies at the heart of this book and epitomises William’s pain as he struggles to let go of his past regrets. Whilst this is a story that centres around difficult topics: loss, grief and death, and William is a very real, flawed character, the overarching theme that music will bring us all together is powerful and heartwarming. A great debut!
~
TW: suicide, alcoholism

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I sat on the train, silently weeping in the opening section of this book. It is not so much a upbeat story but one of redemption, of acceptance and sacrifice and I was left ultimately with a feeling of hope. I thought it was beautifully written and I heard the choral pieces in my had as I read . A feast for the senses, sounds, smells and texture of vitally evoked.

If you like John Boyne you will like this I think.

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Well what can I say about this book? Beautiful, amazing, emotional and uplifting. The subject of the storyline is the awful tragedy of Aberfan, Wales where a colliery spoil tip collapsed into homes and a school, killing 116 children and 28 adults. When I first started reading this I thought it was going to be a terribly depressing story. The magic of this novel is how the author has turned it into such a triumph over tragedy. There is also more to this tale of William, recently graduated as an embalmer who volunteers to help with preparing the bodies of the victims. This is where the story begins but it also goes right back into his childhood. A story of friendship and grieving and the mother/son relationship of which the author has an incredible understanding of. As a therapist that works with PTSD victims myself the author gives a brilliant insight into the effect that it can have on peoples lives. Intertwined with the story are moments of humour but most of all it is heart warming and is a story that gives great hope for people that are facing challenges in life linked to trauma in their past. There are also elements of the power of music and the healing vibrations of a good singing voice, I would recommend this book to everybody and I will.

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What a beautiful, tender, sad, sweet book this is, an absolute gem. William is a young embalmer, son of an embalmer and with a complicated past that gradually emerges as the trauma of volunteering at the Aberfan disaster shocks him into remembering. The characters are wonderful throughout, in some cases they literally sing out of the page, and although the shadow of Aberfan is felt throughout the book, there is also music and forgiveness and new beginnings. I cried a lot but also smiled and won’t forget it in a hurry.

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This tells the story of William and his life from boy chorister to grown man who hates chorister music and no longer talks to his mother after she ruined his life one day.

It is not till almost the end of the book where we finally find out what happened that day to make William feel the way he does, but by then we have seen him gain redemption with his best friend and his wife.

The story itself is beautiful even though it is set against such a tragedy as Aberfan and I found myself not wanting to put it down.

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This is one of the best books I have read this year. The blurb doesn't do this book justice at all as it's so much more than a story around Aberfan.

William is a infinitely likeable character. He is so real and so very beautifully written; I was gripped from the opening chapters of this book by his story.

The story is split into 3 main sections, with small forays into other time periods. We start with the disaster of Aberfan, when William is a newly qualified embalmer. Our next section goes back in time and covers William aged 10-14 as a chorister in Cambridge. Our final section jumps past Aberfan and is William in the 70s, around 7 years after the disaster. I loved each section of this story and always found myself wanting more. The author weaves the story skilfully and it's just a pleasure to read, even when the subject at hand is distressing. It could easily have become a depressing and maudlin story, but the story of Aberfan is sensitively and respectfully covered. It's not easy to think about, but I felt it was really well described.

There are some absolutely wonderful characters in this book. Martin, Gloria, Betty and Colin stood out for me particularly. I was less enamoured with Evelyn who seemed rather selfish to me! I could find sympathy for her situation, although I didn't like her treatment of Uncle Robert and Howard. I loved the description of Martin's family and his unwavering friendship of William.

William grows so much in this book and I feel like I grew along with him. I wholeheartedly recommend this stunning novel and I will look forward to reading more by this perceptive and talented author. Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publishers for my copy of this book.

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With the background of a terrible disaster and the profession of embalming, this book was a surprisingly good read. We follow William, from his past with his close relationship with his mother forward through a life coloured by a tragic event which affected him deeply. A sensitive story around a horrific event which I, as a reader, remember vividly.

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William is a Cambridge chorister, and his mother plans a musical life for him... however circumstances change and he follows his father and uncle into the family business as an embalmer. Then the Aberfan disaster occurs, and 19 year old William finds himself in Wales, dealing with the bodies of children as they emerge from the landslide.

This event changes his whole life, the way he can deal with emotion, friendship and love. There are a cast of special characters who surround and support William, and are all beautifully written: Uncle Robert and his partner Howard; Martin, a fellow chorister; and Gloria - William's true love.

This is a story about post traumatic stress disorder and the effects of a disaster on one individual. It is beautifully written - sad, heartbreaking, emotional, all the more so for the context of real history.

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Utterly sensitively written, a brilliant debut. ' It is October 1966 and for William Lavery it is the night of his graduation as an embalmer and he is at his first black-tie do. As the evening wears on, news hits of a landslide at a coal mine. It has buried a school in Aberfan. William immediately decides he must volunteer to help. It will be his first job as an embalmer, and one he never forgets. William himself is only 19. He is alarmed by what he witnesses that cold, long night, and he makes a life-changing decision that will impact not only his future and his family.

A Terrible Kindness examines the life-changing decisions we make in anger, spite and moments of extraordinary heartache. This book is so topical for the moment as it is 55 years since that terrible night when so many young lives were lost. Absolutely brilliant.

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I thought A Terrible Kindness was excellent: it is readable, insightful, thoughtful and humane.

The story of William Lavery opens at a flashy dinner in 1966 where he is celebrating his qualification, aged 18, to be an embalmer and to work with the newly dead before their funerals. The occasion is interrupted by an appeal from Aberfan for help after the unspeakable disaster which overwhelmed the primary school and many homes and William volunteers. We see his work there, his response to it and its effect on him, and then jump back to his time as a boy chorister in Cambridge as the loving relationships and tensions in his family evolve and where a traumatic event has plainly occurred. It is a book about a decent, kind young man’s inability to deal with his own emotions and about both the difficulty and the possibilities of healing in friendship, love and music.

There are so many ways in which this could have gone wrong, but Jo Browning Wroe gets it pitch-perfect, I think, never once straying into mawkishness, sentimentality, exploitation, facile psychologising or any other of the traps looming around such a story. The opening section at Aberfan brought me to tears more than once with its delicate humanity and compassion, and I was close to tears at other times in the book, too. Wroe’s depiction of William is quite brilliant and utterly believable, and her evocation of his work as an embalmer is engrossing, moving – and fascinating, too. She is also really good at writing about music; the Welsh song Myfanwy and Allegri’s setting of the Miserere both have a very powerful part to play here and she conveys their power as well as any writing about music I have ever read, as well as the joy and transcendence which can come with performing.

I may have made the book sound a difficult read; in fact, it’s anything but. I was completely engrossed and always wanted to read just a bit more. Wroe’s prose (in the present tense) is poised and unobtrusively brilliant, I think, so that everything from the strongest emotions to the feel of Cambridge in the early 70s (and I was there, so I know) is excellently but quietly done.

A Terrible Kindness is among the best books I have read this year and I can recommend it very warmly indeed.

(My thanks to Faber & Faber for an ARC via NetGalley.)

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A Terrible Kindness follows William from childhood through to his mid/late-twenties - from being promising chorister in Cambridge to an embalmer in the West Midlands and volunteering to help at Aberfan.

I thought the opening section to be well done -describing events of the disaster matter-of-factly but with sensitivity as newly-qualified embalmer William aids in the identification and care for the bodies of the children killed.

We then travel back to Williams own youth as he leaves his widowed mother to become a chorister in Cambridge. As we move through William's life, both pre- and post- Aberfan, it becomes clear that he is dealing with the effects of several traumatic events.

I also liked the sections covering William's life - as a young boy torn between supporting his grieving mother and coping with her terrible behaviour to his beloved uncle Robert and his partner Howard; making friends with the fantastic Martin (the best character in this) and some of these relationships fall apart and are rebuilt.

The story is bookended by the Aberfan disaster but it isn't really about that. And that is perhaps my main qualm. It felt like it was a token traumatic event and could have been substituted for another disaster, real or fictional. Aberfan is still a sensitive wound for many and I can understand why this could be a difficult read for some.

I'm surprised that music doesn't seem to get a mention in the synopsis - as, to me, that seems to be the connecting thread that runs throughout the book. The love that William, his father and mother share for it, the desire of his mother for him to pursue singing, that he cuts music out of his life for a while and, eventually, it's healing power - not just for William but for many others in the story.

I enjoyed reading this character-focused, historical fiction about the devastating impacts of trauma, both small and large, and the healing power of friendship, forgiveness and music.

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I loved this book from beginning to end, it is so affecting. As far as my reading experience of this book is concerned I could never do it justice in a review.

William at the tender age of 19 has just completed his embalming course. He has grown up in a family of embalmers so he is used to what is probably more a vocation than ever a young person’s dream career. At one point in the book where William is studying for his qualifications you get some insight into what is involved in the process. I was quite surprised at the amount of knowledge they must acquire involving anatomy and human physiology, for most of us it is something we prefer not to think about. We don’t realise the practical skill that goes into the job let alone the need for a strong constitution, along with a sense of kindness and empathy.

At the beginning of the book, William, full of enthusiasm for his new job, and a desire to help in any way he could, volunteers to attend the tragedy of Aberfan where so many young children lost their lives in the terrible events of that day in October 1966. It is a difficult read at this point, the enormity of the loss and grief suffered is unimaginable. A traumatic event for everyone involved but for such a young man? His experience here has far reaching effects on his life.

The book then goes back in time to William’s childhood. His relationship with his mother, who lost her husband when William was very young. There is also the relationship with his uncle, an embalmer and the twin brother of William’s father. Quite a bulk of the book is spent in Cambridge where William attends a boarding school for choristers. He has a great passion and talent for choral singing which his mother wants to encourage. This part of the book is centered around William and is in a way, a coming of age story. I enjoyed this very much and you get great insight into what makes William the young adult he becomes.

The book then moves on to William’s early adult life when he comes to terms with what has happened in the past. It is such a touching story. Amongst the sadness, especially when William is at boarding school, there are many lighter moments in his life, especially the wonderful friendship he forms with Martin at school.

It is rounded off with a beautiful ending which completed William’s story so satisfyingly. This is a truly special story which I will always remember, and one which I didn’t want to end. It has proved quite difficult to move on to a new book, as I miss all the characters in this book so much. Worthy of 5 stars and so much more.


*To be posted to my blog around publication date Posted to Goodreads today*

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