The relationship between Alison the psychic and her manager Collete is effectively presented, the character of Morris the spirit guide-an obscene, dwarfish bookmaker-is entertainingly vile, and the hints concerning Alison's childhood are predictably dark and deftly placed within the narrative.

The profession itself becomes an excellent metaphor for writing: the spirits though genuine are often difficult to discern, and even when discerned do not always appear when summoned, and therefore the medium is forced to make do with psychological manipulation, theatrical effects, and charlatanry. There's not much here in the way of plot, but still there's a lot to recommend in this novel about a professional psychic-who really does see ghosts-plying her trade in the working class suburbs of London. This is Hilary Mantel at her finest- insightful, darkly comic, unorthodox, and thrilling to read. It is not long before Alison's connection to the place beyond black threatens to uproot their lives forever. Troubles spiral out of control when the pair moves to a suburban wasteland in what was once the English countryside and take up with a spirit guide and his drowned therapist. An expansive presence onstage, Alison at once feels her bond with Colette, inviting her to join her on the road as her personal assistant and companion. She cannot escape the dead who speak to her, least of all the constant presence of Morris, her low-life spiritual guide. At a psychic fair in Windsor she meets the charismatic Alison.Īlison, the daughter of a prostitute, beleaguered during her childhood by the pressures of her connection to the spiritual world, lives in a different kind of solitude. Convinced that she is due an out-of-hand, life-affirming revelation, she strays into the realm of psychics and clairvoyants, hungry for a whisper to set her off in the right direction.

After a sobering, do-it-yourself divorce, Colette is at a loss for what to do next. Hailed as a 'writer of subtlety and depth,' Hilary Mantel turns her dark genius on the world of psychics in this smart, unsettling novel (Joyce Carol Oates)Ī paragon of efficiency, Colette took the next natural step after finishing secretarial school by marrying a man who would do just fine.

Beyond black mantel