Hilary Mantel’s Beyond Black (From Hereford Times)

Hilary Mantel’s Beyond Black

8:00am Tuesday 18th May 2010 in Books By Philippa May

SHORTLISTED for a 2006 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and for the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction, Hilary Mantel’s Beyond Black is at one and the same time extraordinary and ordinary.

Set in the 1980s, it’s the story of Alison Hart, an overweight medium who endlessly tours a Home Counties circuit delivering messages to the still-living from those who have passed on.

Accompanying her is her spirit guide Morris, who, according to one of Al’s colleagues, “is on a very low vibratory plane, very low indeed” and Colette, “sharp, rude and effective”, who has fled a failed marriage and a failing career to manage Alison’s.

Never alone, Al is always surrounded by the sounds of the dead, pushing and shoving to be heard, while in the real world Colette is equally pushy, becoming sharper and ruder with every year they spend together.

As the reader is drawn further into Al’s world, Morris’s true identity becomes clear and the horror of Alison’s childhood is gradually revealed.

Beyond Black combines the shocking reality of Al’s early years and the soulless suburban life she and Colette now inhabit with an alternative world, one that teems with spirits, psychics and the motley assortment of people who queue in the rain to make contact with their loved ones who’ve gone airside.

Impossible to categorise, this is a novel about things that aren’t seen because people don’t have the gift, and things that aren’t seen because others don’t have the will. Even Princess Diana puts in an appearance: “It’s Diana,” Al said. “Dead.”

“Suicide?” asks Colette. “Or accident. She won’t tell me.

Teasing to the last,” Al said.

“I’m sure it will be clearer when it actually happens.”

Horrifying and comic by turns, dense but with the deftest of touches, Beyond Black is Booker-Prize winning Hilary Mantel on top form.

■ About the author HILARY Mantel’s previous novels include Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, set in Jeddah.

Fludd was winner of the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize, the Cheltenham Prize and the Southern Arts Literature Prize; A Place of Greater Safety, an epic account of the events of the French revolution that won the Sunday Express Book of the Year award; A Change of Climate, the story of a missionary couple whose lives are torn apart by the loss of their child; and An Experiment in Love, winner of the 1996 Hawthornden Prize.

Beyond Black was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers Prize and for the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction.

In 2006, Hilary Mantel was awarded a CBE.

Her latest novel is Wolf Hall, which won the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the 2009 Costa Novel Award.

■ Win a Waterstone’s gift card LET us know what you think about Beyond Black and you could win a £10 Waterstone’s gift card.

Email your review to leisure@herefordtimes. com or post it to HT Book Group, Hereford Times, Holmer Road, Hereford HR4 9UJ, with your name, address and contact details. Usual Hereford Times competition rules apply and the editor’s decision is final. The deadline is midnight on Monday, June 7.

■ How to order Beyond Black is published at £7.99. Offer price: £6.99, post and packing free. To order, call the Hereford Times Bookshop on 08430 6000399 or send your cheque or postal order made payable to Hereford Times Bookshop to: Hereford Times Bookshop, PO Box 60, Helston, TR13 0TP. Allow 7-10 working days for delivery. Titles supplied subject to availability. Order online at sparkledirect.com.