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

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Evelyn adores William, he’s all she has left, and has high hopes that singing will save him from the family undertaking business. As well as William’s gentle, caring nature, I also loved Martin’s cheeky character and the man he became. As an aside I initially felt this was an authorial misstep to withold the information about what happened in the incident from the reader when it is known to all of the book’s characters even those not there like William’s later wife Gloria (the daughter of another undertaking/embalming dynasty) – but I think this is so that we can first of all understand its consequences and judge for ourselves if it fits the incident (which while not doubt hugely mortifying should not have lead to a lifetime of damage). The more I think about it, the more I struggle to see any reason why Aberfan needed to be part of this story. The story then spools back to his chorister childhood in Cambridge, his falling out with his best friend, Martin, when Martin more or less assaults him in his sleep, and his determination never to sing again after inviting his uncle, who is gay, and his uncle’s partner to hear him at a service.

There are a number of interesting characters: Martin, his best friend from boarding school and William's uncle. A landslide has occurred in Aberfan and he is needed, as a newly qualified embalmer, to assist with the preparation of the deceased.Just hours after the multiple waves of black sludge engulf Aberfan’s primary school, 19-year-old William Lavery is enjoying his first proper grown-up night out. What made it even harder for William, was that he was already bearing scars from his childhood before he went to Aberfan. In the case of his mother, the incident that took William away from his music career and ended his relationship with his mother is given a great deal of buildup.

Since his father died two years ago, William has had to tighten up his insides and work hard to cheer his mother up” but at Cambridge, he made a real friend: “he is relieved that it seems all he needs to do to be liked by Martin is to be himself. 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. I was probably in primary school myself when we were first told of this all-to-recent local history, and so I will undoubtedly have had a different experience to a lot of my reading buddies during those chapters, the site of Pantglas Junior School just 5. 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.I would not be surprised to see it in a number of prize lists this year – particularly perhaps the Costa, as it is a memorable, emotionally impactful as well as ultimately uplifting read. For anyone not familiar, an avalanche of coal waste on a rain soaked mountain engulfed a town and primary school in Aberfan, Wales in 1966, killing 144 people, the vast majority of whom were young children. This is a very original book which has managed to bring together the diverse topics of the Aberfan disaster, the life of a boy chorister and embalming as a career choice and meld them into a delightful novel. I think the story needed to commit to Aberfan, or not bother as the circling back didn't work for me with very little story in the middle. On 21 October 1966, the primary school at Aberfan in Wales was engulfed in slag from the slippage of a coal mining dump on the hill behind the town.

In fact, William is a very talented choirist, trained at one of the best schools in Cambridge, and singled out to sing the most prestigious solo there. The story had real potential and for a debut novel it is good, but in my opinion it didn't quite work. Time to clamp his defences back down before the flotsam and jetsam of his own life is washed up by the tidal wave of Aberfan’s grief; his father’s death, the abrupt end to his chorister days, the rift with his mother, with Martin. William is very much his mother’s son in that he treats people around him badly… I liked Martin, though, uncle Robert and his partner Howard, Gloria with her family, and their interactions.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.

The book is also I think about characters (in particular William and his mother) that try to simplify difficult and complex issues into their life into a single point of focus and resentment, and adopt a policy of avoidance as well as blame rather than forgiveness (of themselves and others). Instead of moving on from these lapses he severely punished himself (with flow on effects for others). For those familiar or unfamiliar – this documentary I found extremely moving, very well made and also very pertinent to the novel. Most will know the blurb about this one: It’s October 1966 and William Lavery is interrupted at a black tie do with news of a tragedy.However, for me, this story lost its way in the middle, the back and forth of the storyline didn't help. His way of dealing with these situations was to sever ties rather than to mend relationships and at times I wanted to shake him. I guessed I’d have liked more Aberfan, and less of William (who, btw, for anyone who’s read the book, treats Gloria terribly. The abrupt engulfing of a Welsh mining village school under a tide of liquid black filth back in the 1960s endures as a particular piece of ghastly British heritage. The story is told in flashbacks to William’s childhood as a chorister at a boarding school in Cambridge and I think this is where the book fell down for me.