The Coward's Tale

January 9, 2012
The tenderness and generosity of this debut novel is strengthened by the precision and sharpness of its language. Gebbie creates a mid-century Welsh mining village and its tragic history through the eyes of Laddy Merridew, a newly arrived schoolboy, and Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins, the indigent bard whose stories of fellow townsfolk evoke the village’s devastating past and “get into your soul.” Ianto unspools the history of past generations of miners, their families, and the lasting devastation of the Kindly Light mine accident, a defining event for the town. Tenderness lies beneath cold exteriors, and casual brutality beneath placid domesticity, and Jenkins’s burden as the teller is greater than his childhood meditations on death and loss. His empirical experience of the catastrophe created its own burden; he survived a “roar unlike any other... dust and the rush of no air, and flying rocks, and it is the world and the whole mountain tipped about.” The tale is one Ianto can only just bring himself to tell to an audience that yearns to hear it, and this compassionate and sage depiction of a rural community gives the other warmly fashioned characters the power of healing and forgiveness.

Starred review from February 1, 2012
After two collections of stories published in England, Wales native Gebbie sets her first, deceptively loose-limbed novel in a Welsh mining town whose present-day residents remain imprinted by a long-ago mining disaster. A 9-year-old boy named Laddy comes to town to stay with his grandmother while his parents hash out their divorce. Laddy befriends the local beggar-cum-storyteller Ianto Jenkins. The obvious framing device works because Laddy is so forlornly endearing as he threads through the lives of the townspeople whose stories Ianto tells. The shop teacher Icarus was saddled by his father with an impossible ambition he still pursues: to create a feather out of wood. Jimmy "Half" Harris was born to an unwed mother and left by his grandmother to die outside in the cold; he survived but his more fortunate twin Matty, raised by the grandmother and now working at the bank, refuses to acknowledge they are brothers. Deputy librarian Factual Philips has spent his life avoiding play but finds comfort in detective stories. For the price of a coffee or a bit to eat, Ianto tells how a character, say Tutt the Undertaker or Baker Bowen the chiropodist, or Nathan the piano tuner, can trace his situation or idiosyncrasy back to the death of an ancestor during the Kindly Light mine disaster years before. But Ianto's stories only go so far before the characters take over. Icarus builds a boat. Jimmy Half Harris wins back Matty's love and support when he catches a fish. Factual uses his detective skills to help Tutt. Nathan learns how to love thanks to the pub keeper's wife. Meanwhile Ianto slowly unspools his own tale of guilt; although a child new to mining at the time, he has always blamed himself for the mine's collapse and for his adored younger brother's death. With the hypnotic charm of her Welsh lilt, natural storyteller Gebbie whittles tales from a hard bone of loss to create a profoundly moving world.

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October 15, 2011

When he goes to live with his grandmother in a small Welsh town, nine-year-old Laddy Merridew befriends the neighborhood beggar-storyteller, who recalls the collapse decades ago of the local coal mine. Welsh-born Gebbie has won several prizes for extracts of this debut novel, and the publicist calls it wonderfully imaginative, highly charming, and highly moving. Can't beat that. Likely a great book club read (there's a guide) and definitely one to watch.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2011
Nine-year-old Laddy Merridew and old Ianto Jenkins are unlikely friends. Laddy's a recent transplant to the small Welsh mining town in which Ianto has lived his entire life, learning the history of the town and its inhabitants. Sensing a kindred spirit in the boy, Ianto takes it upon himself to introduce young Laddy to the town's history, beginning with the devastating mining accident that affected generations of villagers. As Laddy learns more about the Kindred Light accident, he discovers more questions that Ianto seems unable or unwilling to answer. Gebbie's first novel is steeped in folklore, immersing the reader in the type of tightly knit community immediately familiar to anyone who has spent time in a small town. The author's Welsh upbringing is evident in everything from the lyrical cadences of her characters' speech to the names of the small town's neighborhoods and conjures a genuine sense of place. By using an ensemble cast to give multiple perspectives on the event that dominates the town's history, Gebbie puts a prodigious narrative skill on full display.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)