Beyond Black

A darkly comic contemporary novel about Alison, a medium who performs in halls and function rooms across the suburbs of southern England. She hears and sees the dead, and her calm manner hides a troubled past. Her practical assistant Colette travels with her, and the pair drift through anonymous new housing estates and motorway edges. The spirits who crowd around Alison are often rude and disturbing rather than comforting. Mantel uses the ghost story to explore childhood damage, memory and the strangeness of ordinary modern life. It is funny, unsettling and humane.