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But as the guests sip their drinks and smoke their post-dinner cigarettes a telegram delivers news of a tragedy. An event so terrible it will shake the nation. It is October 1966 and a landslide at a coal mine has buried a school: Aberfan. Historically, on 21 October 1966, just after 9.15 a.m., waste tip number seven on the upper flank of Merthyr Vale colliery — loosened by two days of heavy rain — had slipped down the hillside. A 40-foot wall of debris hit Pantglas Junior School, burying its children and teachers, and killing 140.
We find out later on what caused him to change his mind and make him the reflective 19-year-old we meet at the start of the book. “A terrible kindness they did for us” 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. 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. Mark ended the interview asking what’s next for Jo. ‘As your first book has gone so well, there will be demands immediately from your publisher for number two. When are we going to see that? What's next?’ Besides, brilliant unforgettable characters, the plot moves along at a good pace. I thought shifting between the past and present worked very well.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.’ 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. 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.
We had no neighbours, no nearby friends to play with. It wasn’t until I started infant school, three miles away, quite unprepared and astounded at the vast number of children in one place, that I began to learn how to mix with others. It was an undeniably lonely and isolated early childhood. But I appreciate, now, how much solitude was a key nutrient in my compost. There was nothing to do except watch everyone and everything closely, and develop an imaginative inner world. This constant attentiveness not only saved me from death by boredom, but gave me a keen eye for detail and a certain self-sufficiency. When a girl in my class was killed on a busy road and came to our crem, I felt a strange, fierce ownership of the tragedy Mark was interested to know more about how Jo found writing this novel, based on a true event. ‘You’re writing about such an emotive event that still casts such a long shadow over Wales and the nation. Describe how you felt about writing about it when you yourself, were not there?’
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.
I found the tension between the protagonist's actions and their moral implications to be captivating. Examining masculinity and intimacy, love and loss, trauma and recovery, this story, seen through William’s eyes, is beautifully, insightfully, and respectfully told. Aberfan scooped out the core of him, stretched him thin. It set up camp in his body, behind his eyes, in his ears, his nose, on his hands, and running through his blood 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. 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.
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It is October 1966 and a landslide at a coal mine has buried a school: Aberfan. 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. There are moments when William takes solace — and paradoxically finds kindness — in the presence of the deceased. Taking care of them with tenderness and precision is an act that can’t be lost in translation. Their tacit acceptance of this compassion — his sense that he is doing good — confers healing to him. 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.”
A Terrible Kindness is a novel about grief and forgiveness; of misplaced love and decisions that have long-lasting consequences. It’s strong on setting and the portrayal of anguish. The scenes in Aberfan are handled particularly well; portraying the immensity of the task faced by the volunteer embalmers as they wrestled to maintain professionalism in the face of unbelievable tragedy. Browning Wroe affirms that music acts as a kind of golden spiritual thread throughout the narrative, speaking of both brokenness and healing. For William, there is a period when it is absent from his life; his creator says that it was “like cutting his heart out”. 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. These chapters could so easily have been either mawkishly sentimental or too graphic but I thought Wroe skillfully avoided both traps. Yes there are descriptions of the practices followed by an embalmer, but they are not gratuitously detailed. Nor are there explicit details of the injuries suffered by the children. What we do get is a deep sense of the sensitivity, almost reverence, shown with the arrival of each small frame. How then, after four years as a lauded Cambridge chorister, did his career path change so radically? How could he be estranged from his beloved mother and not have sung a single note in five years?
William Lavery has only just qualified as an embalmer when the call goes out for volunteers to go to the small coal mining town of Aberfan, Wales. A giant slag heap has collapsed, engulfing the primary school and killing over a hundred people, mostly children. William and others help prepare the bodies for burial, but the experience leaves him traumatised and determined never to become a parent, for fear of facing the same loss. Already scarred by the early loss of his father, a difficult relationship with his mother and a devastating event in his teens, William feels most comfortable with the dead, but through the patience and kindness of those who love him, perhaps he can let go of the past and embrace life. A crescendo of pain and beauty that took my breath away. Brava!’ MIRANDA COWLEY HELLER, author of The Paper Palace
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