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

Product Information

I admired the author’s gentle touch in dealing with William’s issues but did feel he was somewhat immature and stubborn in his relationships with his mother and his wife Gloria, while everyone around him seemed to be so tolerant and forgiving of his behaviour for so long. I was drawn into William’s world right from the first page, just as I was drawn into the honest beauty of Jo Browning Wroe’s writing. But compassion can have surprising consequences, because - as William discovers - giving so much to others can sometimes help us heal ourselves. When it circled back to Aberfan at the end, it didn’t have the same emotional resonance for me as at the beginning of the story. Has the passage of time made it acceptable to use the dead of Aberfan as a literary device that prompts a character to re-engage with the troubles of their childhood?

I guessed I’d have liked more Aberfan, and less of William (who, btw, for anyone who’s read the book, treats Gloria terribly. So all we’re left with, my precious son, is whether we can forgive, be forgiven, and keep trying our best.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. Nicknamed Mr Manchester, he transformed the Northern music scene as founder of Factory Records and the Hacienda nightclub after earning a cult following as a television presenter. A Terrible Kindness was inspired by conversations I had with two embalmers, by then in their 70’s, who as young men had gone in 1966 as volunteers to the Aberfan disaster, when a mining waste tip, loosened by rain had careered down the Welsh mountainside and onto a small village primary school. While taking Gloria around Cambridge, William bumps into Martin again; he later embarks on a redemptive trip to Aberfan.

Some of the scenes either slightly strain credibility or seem to involve perhaps rather too much coincidence but there is no doubt that they are powerful in their impact and in their message: there is a particularly clever scene I felt when Robert uses the recording of Miserere to convey his understanding of the hurt he has caused to his mother as well as I think starting to understand the need to forgive; and later a very powerful one in Aberfan when he realises that he does not have to stay trapped in his memories. What made it even harder for William, was that he was already bearing scars from his childhood before he went to Aberfan. 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. A passionate kiss from the student nurse who has captured his heart sends him off on this mercy mission.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. A Terrible Kindness had caught my eye before that, reminding me of the episode of The Crown (on Netflix) that describes the terrible events surrounding the Aberfan disaster. But I do not feel the Aberfan disaster was essential to telling this story, which was about a young embalmer William. 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 rather predictable, but that is not such a bad thing this time, as it lifted what could have been a terribly sad book all told otherwise. Overall, I’m glad I read A Terrible Kindness and hope Jo Browning Wroe has another book in the pipeline.For William’s mother – after the early death of her beloved embalmer husband – she focuses her mourning on hostility to her husband’s identical twin brother Robert and his partner (in both business and life) Howard, openly resenting the way in which Robert reminds her of her husband, how Robert and Howard seem to her to flaunt their togetherness in contrast to her own solitude and most of all the close relationship with William which excludes her (and seems to have taken over from a similarly close bond between them and her husband) and which she fears might suck William into the family business (something which becomes a greater issue for her after his nascent musical abilities are uncovered). Thank you so much Tandem and Faber and most importantly, Jo, the author for allowing me to be one of the first to read this amazing book - it broke me and put me back together again all at once. I read this novel as part of a Readalong over on Instagram, and it was interesting to hear what others know of the terrible Aberfan disaster. 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.