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

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There is no question that Jo Browning Wroe who, at age 58, has written her first novel (as a woman of a certain age, I love when that happens!) has writing chops. 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.

Radio 2 Book Club - A Terrible Kindness | News | RGfE

A Terrible Kindness is a moving literary fiction novel, about the impact working as a volunteer embalmer in the aftermath of the real-life 1966 Aberfan disaster has on the life of a young man and his family. Definitely not my usual kind of read, I got this from Book Club, and didn’t really know what to expect going in. I enjoyed some parts more than others, and struggled to reconcile William’s adult character with the thoughtful boy portrayed in the first half. William was the main character and as the book opens he has just completed his training as an embalmer. A celebration is in full swing when news of the terrible Aberfan tragedy is delivered and the embalmers are asked to volunteer their services. William leaves for Wales but his days there, tending to the bodies of the children, are traumatic and have lasting repercussions in the years that follow. This experience wasn't the only one to cause lasting repercussions in Williams life. Some episodes from his time as a chorister resulted in major upheaval and to some extent altered the course of his adult life and indirectly led to his becoming an embalmer.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. And as his feet fix ever more firmly into that concrete, it is then that the true concepts of family and friendship make themselves known to him. My life has always revolved around the written and spoken word. I worked as a journalist for nine years then in international corporate communications Five minutes later, when Dad and I left the house, the hearse was already sitting under the porte-cochere with two lustrous Daimlers behind it. I bent forward to look at the people emerging from the cars, like dark flowers unfolding in the sunshine. Another unspoken message I had imbibed: grief was more disturbing to witness than death itself – the hearse was, after all, one big flowery window display for the coffin, whereas mourners were hidden behind car windows of jet glass – and undertakers were a dignified, distinguished elite, who weren’t afraid to be close to these people whose grief somehow set them apart from the rest of us. Undertakers stood sentinel alongside the otherwise isolated mourners, quietly directing, guiding, assuring. I would recommend this book to all - although it is historical fiction I believe it would suit those who prefer a more contemporary read too.

A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe review – a saga

In general I found William a difficult main character to warm to and some events difficult to wrap my head around. Some parts of the middle of the story I found boring and frustrating. For William his resentment is focused on his mother due to a traumatic event which occurred in the College Chapel culmination of his Cantabrigian choral career – a solo performance of Miserere. What exactly happens is o In washing away the coal-waste-assault, preparing the little bodies for burial, and helping the bereaved identify their kin, he and his fellow volunteers brought their unique skills to carry out the services that ‘no-one wanted to need’. William’s place at the residential choir school of King’s was engineered by his widowed mother. She has a future mapped out for him, which is a very determined diversion from a prospective life in the funeral business, which was the experience of his late father and is still the trade of his father’s twin brother, Uncle Robert. Family history, promises made, complicated relationships, and feelings of disempowerment among those closest to William stretch his loyalties and a sense of his own destiny.Days later, with no sleep and only short breaks for crab paste sandwiches and whisky-laced tea, his life had changed utterly, in a way he could not have predicted. The author’s interest in undertakers first came from her childhood where she lives in a crematorium (her father was a supervisor) and learnt to admire their respectful professionalism. There were indoor playgrounds, too: a well-equipped office, especially appreciated on those endless Sunday afternoons. I enjoyed the electric typewriter, shooting its letters like bullets at the lightest of touches; the adding machine that printed out sums with a satisfying grind; and the sniffable felt tip pens. Best by far, though, was the little telephone switchboard, with compact levers to snap up and down, illuminating tiny red and green lights. In the opening chapters of A Terrible Kindness, they dutifully arrive with embalming fluid, technical paraphernalia, and tiny coffins, travelling through the night from all over the UK to ‘take care of the dead’ with the sombre focus of their profession.

A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe review - The Guardian

What if he’d chosen differently? What if all that had happened could have made him a bigger person? If each disaster had been a crossroads at which he could have taken a better path? It’s too painful to dwell on.” I remember this too, and it constantly resurfaced in my memory as we drove through Wales’ mining country. For a while, as a chorister, William feels almost complete. Music plays a huge part in the novel, two pieces especially: Myfanwy, the haunting Welsh song of unrequited love, and Allegri’s sublime Miserere, the equivalent of Everest for treble choristers. Without giving the game away, they act as rich strands that interweave through William’s childhood and adult life. As a child with an exceptional voice, he wins a scholarship to Cambridge University choir school, setting in motion some profound events which affect his relationships for years to come. This approach helps William make his decisions in life – if this, then that – and seems to work well for him as his moral compass, until his self-discipline slips to self-indulgence and then self-loathing.Examining masculinity and intimacy, love and loss, trauma and recovery, this story, seen through William’s eyes, is beautifully, insightfully, and respectfully told.

Book club: A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe

I would also recommend this recording of Allegri’s Miserere which is crucial to the plot of the book as well as its themes – listen in particular to the tenor solo at for example 1:30 It’s an intriguing beginning, which already prompts questions. Why would a young man choose this of all professions? How did he get to be so proficient at it? Can someone so young and inexperienced deal with the weight of such human tragedy? That 1966 disaster underpins A Terrible Kindness, the debut novel by Jo Browning Wroe. Her approach is the obverse to that of The Crown, which focused, in its 2019 episode Aberfan, on the sluggish political and royal response (which the Queen is said still to regret). Browning Wroe creates a 19-year-old, William, from a family of embalmers, who arrives that night on his very first job. He finds bodies being borne through the rain, slurry coursing across the streets.Supporting these are friends and family whose patience, acceptance, devotion and love may be unremarked upon but is ever-present. Eyes may well up and throats may clog with emotion in later scenes: only the hard of heard will fail to be moved and uplifted by this exceptional debut novel. William decides he must act, so he stands and volunteers to attend. It will be his first job, and will be – although he’s yet to know it – a choice that threatens to sacrifice his own happiness. His work that night will force him to think about the little boy he was, and the losses he has worked so hard to bury. But compassion can have surprising consequences, because – as William discovers – giving so much to others can sometimes help us heal ourselves. Selection panel review Throughout the story I regularly thought of William as a kind hearted and genuinely good boy who developed into a man with these same traits. He was loyal and he loved intensely, but he was a complex character who made a few poor judgement calls, made some uncharacteristic decisions and said some things he didn't necessarily mean in the heat of the moment. Instead of moving on from these lapses he severely punished himself (with flow on effects for others). His way of dealing with these situations was to sever ties rather than to mend relationships and at times I wanted to shake him. His boyhood best friend, Martin, said it this way