Beyond Black

This book, which I started before my hols and finished while I was away, proved to be a tremendous read. Published in 2005, it is the story of Alison, overweight, troubled by the traumas left from her appalling upbringing, and gifted with genuine psychic powers. Travelling the psychic-fair circuits, doing gigs in seedy halls and run down theatres, offering phone consultations, she does her best to bring comfort to the bereaved, which often entails suppressing her uncomfortable insights. Financially she is relatively successful, and early in the novel finds herself with an assistant, the acerbic, sceptical Colette, who puts her business affairs in order, arranges the purchase of a house, and nags Alison ceaselessly about her weight and her eating habits.Living in the midst of conventional suburbia, where the neighbours believe Alison to be an employee of the weather centre (Colette has told them so, but not told Alison, who is constantly bemused when they grumble to her about the innaccuracy of the forecasts), Alison does her best to conform to the rules laid down by her increasingly irritable assistant while simultaneously struggling with her low-life spirit guide Morris who does his best to make her life difficult. As the novel proceeds, more or more is revealed -- both to the reader and to Alison, who had blocked out her worst memories -- about Alison's truly horrendous childhood, her prostitute mother, and the appalling criminals who populated her early years.
What really impressed me about this book was not only its ability to be achingly funny and desperately tragic, sometimes simultaneously, but also the skill with which Mantel convinces you utterly to buy into Alison's psychic abilities, which are treated with the utmost seriousness -- or rather, with such a throwaway ease that there is no question of doubting them. There is the most wonderful cast of supporting characters, including the bizarre clutch of psychics, with varying degrees of genuineness, who make up the little band of fellow workers on the touring circuit, the sad homeless boy who takes up residence in Alison's garden shed, and not least Morris's dreadful dead cronies, who visit from time to time and torment Alison with uncomfortable reminders of her mostly forgotten childhood. A book which will stay with you long after you have read it.