Book review: Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel

My first encounter with Hilary Mantel’s writings was through her columns in the London Review of Books, some twenty years ago. At the time, I don’t think I even knew she was a novelist. Always insightful and interesting to read, her articles revealed a well-read and eloquent writer. Eventually I became familiar with her historical fiction, starting with the award-winning Thomas Cromwell trilogy. With that background in mind, I’ve found her 2005 novel Beyond Black, which I’ve only recently had a chance to read, both surprising and refreshing.

Alison Hart, the novel’s main character, is a successful psychic medium performing seances in the suburbs of London. Her personal assistant is a young woman named Colette, who has just left an unhappy marriage and moved in with Alison. The two women are both middle-aged, but that’s just about the only thing they have in common. Apart from differences in physical appearance and character, Alison has the uncanny ability to see the spirits and communicate with them. However, unlike what modern spiritualism teaches, namely that the spirit world is very evolved, enlightened, and benevolent (which is also the message she conveys to her paying clients), the spirits Alison personally has to do with happen to be crass and nasty, bordering on grotesque. They connect her with her own tortured past, serving as a constant reminder that she was once a traumatised and abused child raised by an impoverished mother who worked as a prostitute.

This novel is many things at once: it can be read as a ghost story, or as a commentary on social realities of English suburbia—a contemporary condition-of-England novel. Curiously, Wikipedia lists it as a Gothic novel, which I don’t think is technically right. It can also be read as a psychological novel, raising the issues of childhood trauma, and delusional thinking as a coping mechanism. Regarding the latter, Mantel knew better than to leave us with simple answers: the spirit world is real and palpable—to Alison and her circle of psychic friends and associates—and we are not really meant to question that. The novel goes deeper, dissecting the nature of memory and showing how the past comes to haunt us in the present.

The most unusual thing about this book, although it isn’t exactly out of Mantel’s character, is the incredibly dark humour. Less appreciative reviewers have characterised Beyond Black as sad, depressing and horrid (actually, Mantel herself said it was more horrid than anything she could have imagined writing), but they must have missed all the elements of satire and black comedy—slapstick, even. Horrid as it may be, it’s also very funny!

Different in character and style from some of her better known works, I’ve found this novel absolutely brilliant. From the provincial setting and character depictions, to insights into the spiritualist subculture peppered with Mantel’s skillful wit… Everything about it was enjoyable. Add to that a rather unconventional and original approach to its themes, and you have a recipe for a great, genre-bending novel.

Five stars out of five.

---

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Hilary Mantel on Beyond Black and the spirit world (video)

A 2005 CBC Radio interview with Hilary Mantel (audio)

Reading Guide: Beyond Black