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Journal Entry 1 by LeishaCamden from Alna bydel, Oslo fylke Norway on Tuesday, November 04, 2008
 From the front cover:
'One of the greatest ghost stories in the language'
Philip Pullman
'A masterpiece of wit'
Independent'
From the back cover:
'Hilary Mantel has done something extraordinary. She has taken the ethereal halfway house between heaven and hell, between the living and the dead, and nailed it on the page' Fay Weldon, Guardian
Alison Hart, a medium by trade, tours the dormitory towns of London's orbital road with her flint-hearted sidekick Colette, passing on messages from dead ancestors. But behind her plump, smiling persona is a desperate woman: the next life holds terrors that she must conceal from her clients, and her own waking hours are plagued by the spirits of men from her past. They infiltrate her house, her body and her soul, and the more she tries to be rid of them, the stronger and nastier they become ...
'Magnificent - a novel of desperate truthfulness. A majestic work' Philip Pullman
'A brilliant, extraordinary book ... Hilary Mantel's most powerful novel to date' Helen Dunmore
'Darkly humorous and imaginative' Daily Mail
'Beyond Black is chilling, creepy and endlessly inventive' The Times'
This is a trade paperback edition from Harper Perennial, published in 2005, which was also the book's original year of publication.
I've heard a lot of good things about this book, so I want to read it. I've also seen some episodes of the TV series based on this book - or maybe on several of Mantel's books - and it was good, so I'm even more interested. :-)
I bought this book at a book 'festival', ie, a big sale held in the street, hosted by the main branch of the Norli chain of bookstores in University Street in Oslo on Saturday, June 14th, 2008.
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Journal Entry 3 by LeishaCamden from Alna bydel, Oslo fylke Norway on Sunday, July 19, 2009
I've finished this book now, a few days ago. It was a very good read, and completely engrossing. I could hardly put it down and practically flew through it. Very well written in a rather original style which IMO suits the story perfectly. The characters were believable and well described, although not all likeable. Far from it in fact. :-) Colette especially seriously got on my nerves. I sometimes thought that in spite of all she did for her Alison would probably have been better off without her anyway.
This book is quite gruesome in many ways; Alison clearly has a horrific past, although the reader learns few details, which is perhaps just as well. There's a lot of humor too though, Mantel has a way with words that lets her infuse humor into the most grotesque situations without really making it inappropriate. Hard to explain. Maybe I should say that it's understandable in the situations where it appears ... sometimes we humans need humor to survive.
I found the setting very believable; bleak and depressing to be sure, but very well described. Admiral Drive, what a place. :-) I'd definitely recommend this book to pretty much anyone who enjoys a somewhat unusual and very well written read.
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Beyond Black
