Stevie‘s review of A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe
Historical Fiction published by Faber 20 Jan 22
The disaster at Aberfan on the 21st of October 1966 left a mark on many in the UK and resonates with those born long after the event. One aspect I hadn’t really considered before was what happened to the bodies after they were pulled from the wreckage but before the funerals took place. This novel tells the story of one of the embalmers involved in that part of the events and how his life was impacted in the years that followed.
William Lavery is a newly qualified embalmer, about to begin his work in the family firm, who has been taken to a prestigious dinner as a celebration of his success by his uncle and his uncle’s partner. After receiving official recognition of his achievements at an unprecedented early age, an announcement is made that volunteer embalmers are required by the village of Aberfan where an overwhelming number of bodies are being recovered from the school that was buried by a landslide. William immediately volunteers and sets off with a number of companions, most of them previously unknown to him.
Unprepared for what he is to see and experience, William sets to work preparing the tiny bodies for their parents to identify. As he continues, with minimal breaks, the bodies brought to him are increasingly broken, and he and his fellow embalmers, along with some of the adult survivors, have a much harder job to enable identification without causing further distress to their families. At last, all the bodies are ready to be buried, but William is now also broken, both mentally and emotionally. He calls his fiancée to break off their engagement, knowing that she wants to start a family almost as soon as they are married, while he now feels that he could never bring a child into the world after all that he has seen.
William returns to Aberfan some days later to witness the funerals, and, still reeling from his experiences, begins to review his memories of the events that led to him becoming an embalmer. At the age of ten, William was a latecomer to the world of Cambridge choristers, but was quickly befriended by a boy of his own age, Martin, who had an excellent singing voice but was also an accomplished prankster. William soon surpasses Martin’s abilities as a singer and is chosen to perform the pivotal piece at an Easter service. However, his desire to please everyone and to reunite his widowed mother with his father’s twin brother ruins the big moment. William leaves the school and joins the family funeral firm, becoming estranged from his mother and discovering a new calling.
We follow William through secondary school and his external training to become an embalmer and learn how he met his fiancée, and then watch how their relationship began. Following his time in Aberfan, William loses his way, but a chance meeting with an old friend leads to his return to Cambridge, where he finds a new calling and a chance at redemption through helping others.
I loved this book. The characters were flawed, but ultimately real, and while some of the surprises experienced by the characters seemed quite predictable to me, I could understand how they might seem to be unexpected to them. I definitely plan to revisit this book time and again, no matter how sad it makes me in places, and I’m keen to see what else the author has to offer us.
Grade: A
Summary:
When we go through something impossible, someone, or something, will help us, if we let them . . .
It is October 1966 and William Lavery is having the night of his life at his first black-tie do. But, as the evening unfolds, news hits of a landslide at a coal mine. It has buried a school: Aberfan.William decides he must act, so he stands and volunteers to attend. It will be his first job as an embalmer, and it will be one he never forgets.
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.
No excerpt available.
