The process undergone in the pages of "Beyond Black" by its fat, middle-aged English heroine, Alison Hart, is self-analysis and memory recovery of almost unimaginable psychic violence - not the kind of self-actualizing experience Dr. And I say "coming to terms with" because that, too, is just the sort of comforting, shock-absorbing expression, familiar to viewers of the more earnest and wetly therapeutic daytime talk shows, that Mantel has made it her mission to seek out and destroy. HILARY MANTEL'S funny and harrowing new novel is the story of a woman who is coming to terms - better late than never, as any one of the book's many platitude-dependent characters might say - with her extremely disturbing past. It is true that if she read aloud the instructions for a device that came with 'Some Assembly Required'.we would still be enthralled by her voice.We might also complete the assembly.BEYOND BLACK By Hilary Mantel. Her voice itself keeps one in the book,one's mind never wanders. Anna Bentinck ,the perfect reader,always catches the exact tone and voice a book deserves. Suffice it to say that as Woolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies are not available to Audible listeners in Canada I bought two six disc C.D.s, copied them and found out how to transfer them to my iPad. I did not want to be guilty of ‘Spoiler Alerts’.
I hope I have conveyed the essence of the book. I loved this book and was irritated when I realized that I really had to get some sleep. The end of the book arrives without a flourish and with an appropriate conclusion. We laugh with Alison not at her: This gives the reader time to draw breath. Even more unlikely, Alison’s daily life invokes laughter of the ‘out loud’ variety. Against this unlikely and haunting background ,we follow the life of this equally unlikely heroine following a tale which invokes another unlikely combination of unbearable terror ,sympathy and empathy. Alison is accompanied by spirits from her past, including one who seems to be her side kick who handles the finances. Beyond Black ,an earlier book, presents a biography of Alison a morbidly obese, kind woman with a rotten history of childhood who has the unlikely ‘profession’ as a medium in the outer suburbs of London. I do not read new fiction until after the wave of enthusiasm from the reviewers has died down,and a book is holding its own.This was particularly true following the two years in succession when Mantel won the Booker Prize. This is the first Mantel book I have read.
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