It is an honour to be Creative Writing Supervisor at Lucy Cavendish – the college in Cambridge with an excellent reputation for encouraging writers, with the Fiction Prize and the Student Fiction Prize. During Lent Term, I usually lead a six-week writing workshop for the first ten students who sign up, from any discipline. This means there is always a wonderful mix of people, all with amazing stories to tell. This has, without exception, been a wonderful experience with talented writers. Unfortunately, I’m not doing that this year because of the publication of my book. I also lead a one-off workshop on the short story for students who are thinking about entering the student prize. And once a year, along with my co-director, writer Miranda Doyle, I lead a Creative Writing Course for non-college people. Originally, this was a five-day residential, but for the last two years, we’ve been doing it online over a weekend. I love teaching and leading workshops and am invariably bowled over by the talent in the room.

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.

I may have made the book sound a difficult read; in fact, it’s anything but. I was completely engrossed and always wanted to read just a bit more. Wroe’s prose (in the present tense) is poised and unobtrusively brilliant, I think, so that everything from the strongest emotions to the feel of Cambridge in the early 70s (and I was there, so I know) is excellently but quietly done. 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. For those familiar or unfamiliar – this documentary I found extremely moving, very well made and also very pertinent to the novel. The book was selected with the help of a panel of library staff from across the UK. Our readers loved A Terrible Kindness – here are some of their comments:

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.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. Myfanwy is a song about unrequited love, while Miserere explores penitence and the hope of a new life. What do these pieces signify and what part do they play in the narrative? What we discover is a tale of a childhood blighted by the death of his father when he was eight years old. William’s mother is determined that her son will not get caught up in the family’s undertaking business but instead will pursue a career in music. But her plans are thrown into chaos and the relationship with Williams is destroyed because she cannot overcome her jealousy over the boy’s relationship with two other people, her dead husband’s twin brother Robert and Robert’s partner Howard. Louisa Joyner, Associate Publisher, pre-empted UK and Commonwealth rights (excl. Canada) from Sue Armstrong at C&W Agency. A Terrible Kindness is the debut novel by Jo Browning Wroe. After realising the book was about the tragic events in Aberfan, I immediately wanted to read it. Aberfan is a small former coal-mining village in Wales where, on 21st October 1966, a colliery spoil tip collapsed into homes and a school, killing 116 children and 28 adults. I knew this book would be an emotional read and I hoped the author would do the victim’s memories justice. A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe: Plot

William’s mother says: “My job in life, William, is to love you like no one on earth, and I have to say, I think I’m doing a pretty good job . . .” Is she right? To be fair, I probably should have known not to venture near A Terrible Kindness given its mawkish appearance, but I was very intrigued by the mention of Aberfan. What was it about the make-up and purpose of the Midnight Choir in Cambridge that made it so central to William’s rehabilitation? Tibi soli peccavi, et malum coram te feci: ut justificeris in sermonibus tuis, et vincas cum judicaris. 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.

Comments

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. Although he comes from an undertaking family, that he would train as an embalmer was never a given. A gifted singer with a stunning voice, William knew his mother was fiercely determined that he should follow a musical career. Exactly what his father had wanted for him was never stated before his premature death when William was just eight. 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. Spending time with the characters in Jo’s astonishing debut was one of those unforgettable encounters. A novel with deep emotional truth at its heart, and wit, honesty and resilience pulsing through every paragraph. It is a very special debut and one we all feel really honoured to be publishing.