A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe

0:05 Welcome to Gloucester book clubs book Lounge. I'm Christina Young. And in tonight's episode, we're going to be talking about a book that we recently read a terrible kindness which is a debut novel by The Fab Joe Browning row. I'll be joined by Liz and Joe Tonight. 19 year-old William Lavery is dressed for Success. His first black tie do it's the Midlands chapter of The Institute of embalmers ladies night, dinner dance. And William is taking Gloria in her sequined evening gown. He can barely believe his luck but as the gas sip their drinks and smoke their post dinner, cigarettes, a telegram delivers news of a tragedy an event.

1:01 So terrible it will shake the Nation. It is October 1966, and a landslide at a coal. Mine has buried a school a pathan 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.

1:48 Can sometimes help us heal ourselves. So thank you both. Thank you, Liz. Thank you, Joe for joining me tonight. We have had a really great time discussing this book. I'm sure you would agree. I'm just going to read a paragraph about what But this story sort of hinges on really. So, historically on the 21st of October 1966 just after 9:15 a.m. waste tip. Number 7, on the upper flank of the mirth of Elko Yuri loosened by two days of heavy, rain had slipped down the hillside, a 40-foot wall of debris.

2:32 Hit pant glass, Junior School, burying its children and teachers and killing 140. 40 bodies, 116 of them children to be cleaned and prepared and presented for identification and burial to their grief-stricken parents. It was a harrowing Prospect in real life embalmers were mobilized in the novel. Williams response is immediate, I want to go. And so the Story begins. So let me ask you both. Liz, you go first. What did you think of this novel? I thought it was an excellent local. It dealt with a very sensitive and difficult Topic.

3:21 In its first third, the terrible accident at a van, but I thought it was handled extremely well. It didn't, it didn't pass on the nitty-gritty of what William has an embalmer had to do, but it set it with in a very pathetic environment, the book really is in three parts other than and then his days as a chorister in Cambridge and his training as an embargo. And if it isn't one continuous chronology, it flips backwards and forwards in time, but I thought the three sections and it is very well. I thought the characters will roll.

4:07 Organized joy that very much. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. If I think to go on this one of the best books we've read this year, really create story. I remember a van and never bitched about it, but I had no idea about the farmers. Being involved chose quite interesting to find out about that. I also felt that it was a good portrayal of one of the timelines is concerned with his education, in the Cathedral School in Cambridge, and it deals very well with life at a prep school. All in those sort of days.

4:41 What it was like for boys being sent away from home to places like that, the Locking about, they got up to the Rival reason that sort of thing coming of age stroke a sexual Awakening aspect of their childhood and was dealt with very really well, very accurately. I thought so it's definitely a hit for me. I gave it a 9 out of 10 of thing and our book club meetings. And throughout the story, I thought William, is this really kind-hearted? Genuinely nice boy, and he developed into a mum with those traits, but and he was very loyal and he was loved, he seemed to be a loved intensely by those around him that he was quite complex and he made us, you poor judgment calls and he made some uncharacteristic decisions and he said some things he didn't necessarily mean In the Heat of the Moment.

5:32 And instead of moving on, from those lapses, he ended up punishing himself and he ended up pushing those people away from him and running away from situations, which will come on to later on in our discussion. He's mum said this, what a terrible mess. We make of our lives. There should be Angel police to stop us at these dangerous moments, but there don't seem to be. So all we're left with my precious son is whether we can forgive be forgiven and keep trying our best Best and his best friend who I absolutely loved.

6:05 Who's called. Martin said for the gentlest most kind-hearted person. I know you are extraordinarily good at making, a pig's ear of things now that sums him up. Does it not? I liked Martin tremendously partly because he seemed to have an inner strength that William didn't always show. Obviously, Marty doesn't appear in the first section of the book at Apple Valley. But he's a very key figure when their school boys at school and I agree with Joe having survived boarding school, it came over very well.

6:44 I don't know about a boy's boarding school but it certainly is summed up. The equipment of girls boarding school, monitor as a character, he's very strong and he's exceptionally loyal, he supports William, he helps him a great deal. They are to a certain extent, you know, sort of Quasi competitive relationship because they're both Prime choristers. Both Prime soloists. I don't think William always treats Martin. This one instance where I think he betrays Martin, and he doesn't act in a very friendly with him, but I think it's key that when he finally does go back to Cambridge as an adult, it's Martin that he goes to live with, and Martin who gives him Support Williams mom says my job in life.

7:34 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 liked well in a way is to be able to tell with Evelyn the mum. I've got a feeling that she possibly a bit too overprotective and that that's helped to make William. The very sensitive soul that he is people who read the story will find that there's tension between William and his mum, over the way in which she wants to manipulate the course of his life. The difficulties, she has an accent. His eventual joining of the family funeral director firm.

8:06 I'm not sure how much of his difficulty in relationships and his problems. With his girlfriend Gloria are to do with the way he was brought up. I wouldn't be too critical of you didn't because we don't know anything about her background. We don't know about her upbringing. We don't know about her marriage to Williams father before he dies. We don't know how life was for her and why she seemed to cling so tightly to to William. I thought it was. A dysfunctional. Just wrap almost destructive relationship that she had that her son, William one could feel sorry for her because it wasn't a developing through the book.

8:48 Again, I realized that her husband's twin Roberts & Roberts partner. Howard had all known each other in a very close relationship for ten years before he married Evelyn, I missed that the first time around reading. So Paul and Robert and Howard had have this bond for ten years before either never came on the scene. So I can imagine that could be quite threatening as a young wife, but I felt her insecurities and her jealousy led her to behave in a way that I hope most adults wouldn't. I think she certainly had mixed motives certain with you both agree in her, needs to get William away from Robert and Howard.

9:39 His partner partly. I think she she was homophobic in lots of ways but she really didn't want William to go into the funeral directing business, did she? She was really against that and he did have a magnificent voice. He did have a fantastic career, possibly ahead of him in you know music. But I think some of her motivation was to break up any kind of three. Now, that, you know, the William might get involved with because they were the Three Musketeers weren't they Williams, dad and Williams, uncle and Howard.

10:18 They were the Three Musketeers. When you stab died, he became the third musketeer. And I think she was really worried that he was just going to be dragged away from her. And so she needed to get him away from them. I don't think she objected to the farming business. Spur. Say I don't think it would have mattered what Robert inhabit and Paul the doing. She just doesn't want her son to be one of their tight, little Inner Circle. She was she was too insecure to to accept that. He's just a bit jealous.

10:56 Wasn't she is the relationship that he had with his uncle and hard? Yeah, has he got a bit? Well I think that the agree with you a question of the there is a suspicion that the pursuing of a musical career for William with the robin thews as mm by Evelyn was a proxy for her wish to get him away from Robert and Howard and that sort of cake. If you like that. I felt so insecure about time again. She says things, like you take him away from me. They won't be any room for me. It'll just be you not. It really is an us and them as far as she's concerned, you know, she's got to drag William to herself because otherwise they'll get in kind us.

11:45 All a terrible kindness. If you want to put it like that seems to be at the core of the novel. So many of the characters seem to want the best for each other. But tension and pain seemed to accumulate. And when things get misplaced or or misunderstood and Williams Mother, Evelyn, obviously wants the best for William, but her motives are really mixed. And William wants to be kind to Gloria his, his lover, his girlfriend. But he miss Reed's, what she wants, and Williams uncle, and his partner wants to.

12:17 He's evil in grief, but in doing so they make it worse. Is his kindness. A theme that came through for you? Yeah, it is I think, particularly in relation to the embalming that William does and are the children have a van the tenderness with, which he cleans them and actually does the chemical process of embalming and Trisomy Central to their parents. And I think that is the kindness, the terrible kindness. Is that it's at A job to do certainly and I found the first part in out of an incredibly moving that I didn't know anything about the technical process of embalming.

13:03 So I actually learnt quite a bitch in this book but the way that I though told intents and purposes just caught an empty shell, they're dealing with William and the helpers they talk to the children, they leave their names when they know who they are. There is a, there is a tenderness there, a great desire to give some sort of dignity to these. Are people who've been destroyed and I think Kyle is creeps up quite often in the novel. Martin is kind to William at school when he steps in to stop the others.

13:44 Then just stopping being followed by the others. He owes him his kind, he even takes the blame for things that William was done. So, yes, there there is kindness and loyalty. And Martin still beating a very kind person when he's an animal, grabbing his choir. So yes sir, I think it's a motif. Absolutely. And I think going back to Martin nurses friendship with William. What, why do they think it was so important to William to have this really good friend? Well, it seems to me that he William lakhs from his upbringing the presence of his father he lacks.

14:29 That's the sort of security of a call like a normal Loving Family Home and it's only goes away to school in Cambridge that he meets. Martin and gets semi adopted by Martin and his family that he feels. He's found, sort of stable place to be happy. William didn't have much of a group. I imagine he was an only child. He had my brothers and sisters. I can't imagine his holy being bustling. Open house tour. His school friends popping in and out. I don't think he, I don't think he had a very close people who tell me went to the choristers school, It is single cologne to me, actually at home, you know.

15:14 I think he was close with his mum and he was close with Robert and Howard but you don't get told anything in the book. Do you about his life or his friendships prior to going off to Cambridge? So, didn't sound like he had very many. There was a strong theme of Music running through this book, wasn't there because he went to the chorus to school at Cambridge, it was King's College Cambridge, which is very Famous and chorister school and they worse. There are two main sort of songs in which came through one was myth fan, we, which is a song about unrequited, like love and misery, which explores penitence, and the hope of a new life.

15:58 Did those pieces of music needs to be in the book? Would it have been okay if they weren't there or did they have a really significant? Place. I think they are very good finding threads. If it wasn't for the literary, you wouldn't have the debacle of Williams exit from the chorus to school. He wouldn't have such a big change in his lifestyle and my family. He sings it on the hilltops of graves of the above and Aaron. So they're two quite important. Shoelaces, if you like the Tie, The Narrative together, well Joe, do you see where the unrequited love comes in in the book in the novel.

16:53 Well, I suppose there could be several places but it isn't one that stands out in my mind is the fact that Martin's love for William his unrequited because Martin is K. Basically and William is straight. And although, they're very good friends, that's the limit of the connection. There were a couple of other things like almost with Gloria and William, really? Because I think Gloria really did love William a lot but felt as if he Really love her that much. And she gave him the opportunity didn't see before she started going out with Ray to.

17:30 She said to him, you know, is it okay? Is it? Okay, if I go out with Ray giving trying to get him to say, no, you know, it's not okay. I want to go out with you but he didn't do that. He let her go off with Ray and I think to her that must have felt like, well, he doesn't really have any feelings for me, so I might as well go off with Ray then. So I think there was that you know, for a while. While there was that unrequited love bit there. Gloria was quite a strong woman because, you know, she she had to hang in there for William to actually end up being her partner.

18:07 And then, what does he do? He says, I'm going to leave you because I could never agree to having a child with you and yet still she stays and even when she does become pregnant and then William doesn't know it. She's We'll prepare to hang in there for him so I could choose a very low usually loyal. Why did he do that to do? Why did he make that phone call? Well, he was panicking. Wasn't here is a very sensitive boy and he I think he probably felt if he was going to do a job, you have to do it perfectly everything in life had to be perfect with him.

18:46 And if he was going to have a child, he couldn't face the thought of having child of my died, because he would then have, After that do the act of embalming for the child and that was just something so horrible and face up to. And because of that he therefore thought I better let Gloria off. She must find another man who can give her what she wants. Got me a cruel thing to do, but he did it out of a sense of What he thought was Duty or his walked, I didn't practice letting her go. That's another example.

19:19 Isn't it of a terrible? Kindness actually because it was terribly. Cruel actually to her at that point, wasn't it? He was only 19 very young. Yeah. And do you think he was right to make the decision to go and do the embalming? It was you'd only just qualified. It was probably his first major job. Did he was going to do and it was a hell of a thing to take on at 19. What do you think he was wrong to make the decision to go? What do you think? Liz. I think he probably made it without realizing exactly what it was going to cost him and he's deeply scarred by this.

20:01 I mean he really does have a post traumatic stress episode for many years afterwards. And he has this double fear mean, any fear of would be parent is suppose I have a child and it dies, but in his context Not only was the that theater overcome But because he was an embalmer, everyone would probably. And he would expect you to consult to embalm that child, which is a horror. Most parents would never have to go through. I think he went out of a great sense of Duty when the call went out but um, I don't think he probably realized just how awful it was going to be and he does taking years to get over it.

20:45 The interesting thing about all of this is that he was a really good embalmer, wasn't he, he likes doing it. He was a perfectionist. He loved the time with with the deceased. You know, will you quiet time with them? And he was preparing their bodies. What made him such a good in bomber. Joe, what was it about his personality that fitted? So? Well with that job? Well, I think is his sensitivity, and as I said at the beginning, I think to some extent, his sensitivity is the result of his mother being overprotective when he was young at nature of his upbringing.

21:21 ATM, sensitive and made him very caring and as you said, perfectionist in the way that he did things. So he's not only took a lot of trouble over embalming people, when he had to do it, he did it to a very, very high standard and couldn't couldn't be doing with anybody who wouldn't do it to the same standard serious attitude towards Ray, or who was a bit of a scallywag and wasn't really that interested in it, it has to tell Ray wasn't simply that you are almost insulting the deceased by not doing the job as perfectly as you could do.

21:52 Well, he still has this capacity for kindness almost at the end of the book. When there's a character called Colin, who is one of Martin's down-and-outs in the cherish acquire that, he learns. And because of circumstances, come and dies and really will end up in bombing him. I get the impression that he's not just involving the body, he's involving a person and we would all like to think that that's the way Funeral Directors. Do treat people that they give them the last care of when he's actually embalming.

22:31 The sense that he's doing something good for that person. I mean it is a very intimate act, isn't it? The end of someone's life, it's looking quite privileged in some ways to actually be able to do that for someone. It just seemed They get something back for himself from that. He wasn't just traumatized by what happened when he was a very young man at other van. I think he'd been on the receiving end of A Dysfunctional Family. He was trying to seem possible balance between his two very much loved uncle's, who he was very fond of and his mother.

23:08 We obviously loved very much but playing if you like Piggy in the middle between the two of them. I just want to try and be loyal to both of them pushing the time that they would like if not love each other. So I think his he had quite a lot of emotional problems in his life. The author, Jay Browning, Road, grew up herself and grammar torian and we're so death is quite familiar to her growing up. It wasn't something that was scary. You know she she knew about it and I think she brings to the narrative.

23:42 That's significance of the intimate. Personal relationship that takes place between the dead individual. And the embalmer. I think that's, you know, she she obviously has a great insight into that and I think that comes through in the novel because and I'm sure you would agree with me that the whole subject matter of a van is very sensitively and respectfully dealt with in the book. Let's go towards the end of the book a little bit. Now, what was it about the makeup and the purpose of the midnight Choir in Edge that made it.

24:17 So Central to Williams rehab from the awful place that he had been in for quite some time. But I suppose that it's the fact that the, the choir was set up and run by Martin to provide City, Redemption for these people who would eventually down-and-outs drug addicts and alcoholics living on the street, it was providing them with a means of redemption and some purpose in life and that is Ali. What William needs at that point in his life and his loft is lost where he's going with his life. I think he's also anyway and someone made this point out one of our book club meetings and it was a really good one that actually William was very good at connecting with the dad but he was not very good at connecting with the living and it seemed like this midnight choir had brought him back to connecting with the living again and it was the it was the Turning point for him is where his life seemed to turn around.

25:19 And he started to feel more interested in singing again, which had gone completely awful. And, you know, started to think of more again, about Gloria and getting back with her. So I think it was an immensely important without dear old Martin again, dragging him off out of the bedroom and saying, you've got to come and you've got to help me with this midnight choir. It's really important without that, I don't know what would have happened. Happen to him. So again, Martin saved him. I think, and also remember to start off with.

25:52 William can't bring himself to walk into the Chapel to listen. It is almost his standing at the doorway probably wanted to go in but but can't think the function of that midnight choir. It wasn't just Redemption, it was bringing Beauty into lives of people who had virtually no Beauty in their life because of her. probate full of little, the circumstances they live in, but that brief moment when they were singing together or when they were listening to music, and again it's the place where the thread can be tied up again, the miserere can be brought back into the seeing in the same way that the family is brought back right at the end there the to shoelaces if you liked and story, some people have criticized, Joe Browning, Row 4 Possibly capitalizing on the Apple fun disaster for the novel.

26:48 How would how do you feel about that Joe? Is that something that you would say is true? No, I can understand why some people might think that. But as first very unfair, she handles that have a grand show sensitively and caringly and accurately. Which is the most important thing that is be completely unfair to put a blame her for taking advantage of the disaster. I don't think people rather than wood That's all I said so far. As the books concerned, the portrayal of Williams returned to a van. At the end of the test show, basically the the villagers have come to terms with their grief and that they appreciated.

27:32 The intervention of the time of William and the other and bombers. And I think the I'm sure that is an accurate reflection of how they actually are. I think I have a plan is one of those instances that it's become embedded in the National psyche, it's an event that people have heard about a know about in this country. And if you were to say, well, notebook, or even in some cases, their phone can ever be made, we'll think of all the other traumas and all the things that have happened but books have been written.

28:08 If it was an another style of writing and not handle the way, this also did it may be but I thought she She was exemplary the way she handled it. I agree. I think, you know, we have lots of historical fiction books, haven't we? You know, it's Jonah on its own. And actually, you know, there are loads of books have been written about the world walls and lots of other disasters. I don't see why this needs to be any different from that, really. And then, you know, it was a tragedy. It's something that the Welsh people and particularly people in a van will always remember sure that's true, but I agree with you both are I think she tackled it very, very respectfully and I don't think she should be criticized in any way about that.

28:55 It is a genuinely Redemptive story, this one, isn't it? She said, actually that my job was to get willing to the point at the end of the novel, where he dealt with enough of his stuff, be able to live his life more fully. Did she succeed in that for you Joe? Yes, I'm sure. I think that's putting it very well. What she says about it and she definitely Absolutely night. Yes, there is without want to give anything away physically, as concerns, the plot, there's a happy ending, William does seem to sort our enough of his baggage.

29:32 Would you recommend it? Loses the book, I'm sorry I struggled a bit with the ending sense that having taken a fairly strong dislikes, the character of evening, her sudden motion off. Versus into a nice quote person, the end to me. I'm sure people can change and they can stop stop being unpleasant but somehow it was a little bit too contrived. And again I mean if it was ever made into a film there is a very similar graphic ending where again it's in a van up on the Hills you think hmm. That's a coincidence but certainly yes.

30:18 I mean William is restored and you can imagine he would go up and have a happy life. Williams going to have a personality transplant, is he? He's always going to be the sensitive, possibly, quite introvert chat. These always being but hopefully, he will stop making decisions that actually, actually a really act against him all the time. You know, and stop him from being happy. So hopefully it's going to go forward. But is it a good book for a book club, Joe. Yeah, brilliant book. And I said, I think is one of the Funds, we've read this year and it's caught a lot of a lot of good discussion.

30:59 We had our meetings, very popular book amongst our members and discussions were all really very interesting, pretty high scoring book. I think this one put out to be, could turn out to be the highest scoring of this year, but he wanted to contenders for that. So we'll see. But what about you lose? Would you say recommend it to anyone to read it? Oh yes. I mean, I think it's Alexis Choice report Club because it's sensitively written but because it's two stories, molded into one above, an and the musical side of Cambridge, and they're also neatly tied up with each other's to very strong threats, to that story.

31:44 Yes. I mean, I was an excellent choice. The other thing we need, we haven't mentioned but we should say is that this is Joe groaning, Rose Debbie. You novel. So, it's, I think it's pretty amazing to be able to write a Debian novel, as well as this because it is beautifully written. I think, thanks for joining me tonight. Listen Joe, and thanks to listeners out there, book Lounge, will be taking a break from our discussions in December, but we'll be back in January. When we will be discussing lessons.

32:16 The new novel by, in McEwen. In the meantime, have a happy holiday, keep reading. Why?

32:26 Apologies listeners for some of the sound quality in tonight's podcast. I'm afraid it was beyond our control. Thank you for listening to Gloucester book clubs podcasts. You can find us on Spotify. Anchor, FM, Google and apple podcasts. And many more we look forward to. Having you join us again soon.