Colette, who veers between scepticism and belief, cannot see him, but when he joins them in the car, the whiff of sewage is unmistakable.Īlison is never alone and it appears, never has been. Not only does Alison commune with the dead but she is plagued by them and by one in particular, her ‘spirit guide’ Morris, a foul-mouthed, vulgar and violent character who is always with her, fiddling with his flies, pulling off her bedclothes and watching her in the bath. In a bravura set piece, Alison and her band of psychic friends must manage a surge of clients following the death of Princess Diana, who remains confused and conflicted in the afterlife as she was when alive.

If Alison embellishes what she hears, it is only for the sake of performance. Much of the comedy in the novel comes from the fact that the dead are as mundane as the living, relaying dull messages through Alison about refurbished kitchens, toothaches and lost items of clothing. The novel opens with Alison performing on stage and Mantel makes it clear from the start that she uses some canny guesswork and subtle suggestion to get results, but that she does genuinely commune with the dead. It is also a terrifying ghost story detailing the nature of the adult mind continuously haunted by childhood trauma. Beyond Black is a darkly comic account of clairvoyancy and psychic showmanship told against the backdrop of the uninviting new towns on the edge of England’s motorway networks a world of slip road and service stations, scout halls and pub back rooms.

Beyond black novel