A Terrible Kindness: The Bestselling Richard and Judy Book Club Pick

Product Information

Throughout the book we’re given hints that some calamity befell William when he was a boy, causing him to leave Cambridge abruptly without completing a coveted scholarship scholarship at a university choir school . It’s not until the final chapters do we learn what happened, and why this has caused William so much anguish over the years. How marvellous it is when a book broadens your horizons, takes you to places you would never envisage yourself going, and provides you with an enjoyable reading experience all at the same time. A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe did all of that for me. Horizons were broadened when I learnt about the 1966 Aberfan tragedy which resulted in the deaths of 116 children and 28 adults. I'd never considered the life of a boy chorister boarding and training at Cambridge and I certainly never envisaged being taken into the world of an embalmer. Granted this was all via a work of fiction but it propelled me toward an evening of Googling and YouTubing once I'd finished the book. I truly appreciated listening to the magnificent sounds of various Cambridge choir renditions of Miserere and Myfanwy two songs regularly mentioned in the book. However all I've mentioned so far was the icing on the cake. The book itself was well written with interesting characters having to handle difficult situations and I was super impressed to learn this was a debut novel. This is a well written debut novel telling a heartfelt story on one man's coming of age after some difficult times. It wasn't so much about the Aberfan disaster as about the effects of PTSD on those who are involved in recovering bodies after such disasters. I felt the novel would have benefitted by dealing with the Aberfan disaster more sensitively by integrating it into the rest of the novel, rather than putting it aside until the end of the novel, when the aftermath and subsequent inquiry had such a big impact on the UK at the time. Mark asked, ‘William, as a 19-year-old, learns lots about embalming, and he becomes very, very good at it. It's a gruesome business though. How did you learn all that you needed to know about embalming in the 60s and 70s?’

What we discover is a tale of a childhood blighted by the death of his father when he was eight years old. William’s mother is determined that her son will not get caught up in the family’s undertaking business but instead will pursue a career in music. But her plans are thrown into chaos and the relationship with Williams is destroyed because she cannot overcome her jealousy over the boy’s relationship with two other people, her dead husband’s twin brother Robert and Robert’s partner Howard. Of course, everyone needs distance to appreciate the quirks and oddities of their particular childhood. My father was the superintendent of a Birmingham city council crematorium, and the job came with a small house set within the grounds. From our kitchen window we could see the wrought iron gates through which the funeral processions came every 20 minutes and rolled past our window. It was all I knew. It was normal. Nevertheless, I think I was slower than I could have been to realise just how unusual it was to have spent my formative years in such an environment and to consider how it shaped the person and writer I became. To William, the intricacies of embalming are logical and calm and provide both an escape from and a framework for the more unpredictable elements of his life – his love for the beautiful and patient Gloria, and his dear and mischievous friend Martin. Death was also once a part of everyday life for Browning Wroe herself — her father was superintendent of a Birmingham city council crematorium and her family lived in a house on the grounds. She and her sister would often strap on their skates and take a spin in the cavernous crematorium. It was a solitary childhood which she says shaped the person and writer she became. Although he comes from an undertaking family, that he would train as an embalmer was never a given. A gifted singer with a stunning voice, William knew his mother was fiercely determined that he should follow a musical career. Exactly what his father had wanted for him was never stated before his premature death when William was just eight.

Selection panel review

It has been an extraordinary few months for me; first, signing with Sue at C&W and now being welcomed so generously by Louisa at Faber – both brilliant women in the publishing world that I feel thrilled to have supporting me. From the moment I learned about the volunteer embalmers at Aberfan, I wanted to find a way to tell a story that honoured and respected both them and the families so deeply affected by the disaster. It’s quite a daunting thing to do, but I feel with Faber, my novel is in the most capable hands imaginable. Embalming — the other main element in the novel — also carries spiritual and emotional heft. The author grew up in a crematorium, where death was familiar, but neither contemptible nor cheap. She brings to the narrative the significance of the intimate, personal relationship that takes place between the dead individual and the embalmer. Jo Browning Wroe grew up in a crematorium in Birmingham. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and is now Creative Writing Supervisor at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. A Terrible Kindness is her debut novel, which was shortlisted for the Bridport Peggy Chapman-Andrews award. She has two adult daughters and lives with her husband in Cambridge. A word from Jo The opening section about Aberfan was one of the most moving things I have ever read. I had tears rolling down my face and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, even when I wasn’t reading the book. It’s so funny to me now, that I thought for so long I had had the most boring childhood in the world because I didn’t have friends and we didn’t have lots of visitors. Of course, now, I can see what an extraordinary upbringing it was.”

I interviewed two of the embalmers who'd been there at length,’ said Jo. ‘They told me their stories in great detail with great feeling. Their story was linked to going into Aberfan, and helping, and then leaving again.’ Just because they’ve lost everything, doesn’t mean they’ve stopped being human . … Most of them have probably thought at some point, the world was a good place. The way I see it, singing about it keeps them in touch with who they were, are, could be. ..they might have lost everything, but no one can take their voices.Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with the opportunity to read an ARC of this very special book. THIS remarkable debut novel starts in a slightly bizarre location, and in the shadow of a cataclysmic event. It’s the Ladies’ Night Dinner Dance for the Midlands Chapter of the Institute of Embalmers in 1966. William Lavery, 19, has graduated as the youngest embalmer in the country, and the first student to achieve full marks in every area of study. He is sitting at a linen-covered table with his first love, Gloria, and is about to be congratulated in public by the Institute’s President. Family plays a huge part in this story, the dynamics of relationships, love, death and acceptance. It has it all and with such powerful writing that every person feels real. Every event affected me. This story isn’t just memorable. It is unforgettable. It is perfection.

Since then, I have been writing educational books and learning how to write novels, really,” she says. “I was also teaching creative writing and I was helping with the literary festival in Cambridge. That experience was really good because I got to grips with the hugeness of the task of writing a novel. Along the way, like most novelists, there were lots of rejections and ‘really good but not good enoughs’. Eventually, I was good enough, which was great.” William would suffer from the trauma of that day for years afterwards, with nightmares and visions of mangled children, which would affect his relationships with women and young children. What made it even harder for William, was that he was already bearing scars from his childhood before he went to Aberfan. His father died when he was eight and after being encouraged by his mother to develop his musical talents rather than go into the family business, he was accepted into a chorister school in Cambridge two years later. However, his musical career came to an abrupt and traumatic end, causing William to sever ties with his best friend Martin as well as with his mother, Evelyn and to later train as an embalmer and join Robert and Howard in the family business he has come to love. William gets his moment in the spotlight, but it is eclipsed by the handing of a telegram to the president, who reads it out: “Embalmers needed urgently at Aberfan. Bring equipment and coffins.”

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. Martin Bond The author, Jo Browning Wroe. Her novel was inspired by her experiences growing up in a crematorium His work that night will force him to think about the little boy he was, and the losses he has worked so hard to forget. But compassion can have surprising consequences, because – as William discovers – giving so much to others can sometimes help us heal ourselves.