Beyond Black

Last updated

Beyond Black
Beyond Black.jpg
First edition (UK)
Author Hilary Mantel
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Genre Gothic novel
Publisher Fourth Estate (UK)
Henry Holt and Co. (US)
Publication date
2005
Media typePrint (Paperback)
Pages384 pp
ISBN 0-00-715775-4
OCLC 57382720

Beyond Black is a 2005 novel by English writer Hilary Mantel. It was shortlisted for the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction. [1] [2]

Contents

Plot summary

The book's central character is a medium named Alison Hart who, along with her assistant/business partner/manager, Colette, takes her one-woman psychic show on the road, travelling to venues around the Home Counties, and providing her audience with a point of contact between this world and the next. On the surface, Alison seems like a happy-go-lucky woman, but this persona is only a mask she wears for her public. In truth, she is deeply traumatised by memories and ghosts from her childhood, and a knowledge that the afterlife is not the wonderful place her clients often perceive it to be. She spends much of the story trying to exorcise her demons, and by the end is ultimately able to overcome them.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Carey (novelist)</span> Australian novelist

Peter Philip Carey AO is an Australian novelist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Drabble</span> English biographer, novelist and short story writer

Dame Margaret Drabble, Lady Holroyd, is an English biographer, novelist and short story writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zadie Smith</span> British novelist, essayist, and short-story writer

Zadie Smith FRSL is an English novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. Her debut novel, White Teeth (2000), immediately became a best-seller and won a number of awards. She became a tenured professor in the Creative Writing faculty of New York University in September 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lorrie Moore</span> American fiction writer (born 1957)

Lorrie Moore is an American writer, critic, and essayist. She is best known for her short stories, some of which have won major awards. Since 1984, she has also taught creative writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Doughty</span> English novelist, playwright and journalist

Louise Doughty is an English novelist and screenwriter. She is best known for her bestselling novels, including Apple Tree Yard. She has also worked as a cultural critic for newspapers and magazines. Her weekly column for The Daily Telegraph was published as A Novel in a Year in 2007. Doughty was the presenter of the BBC Radio 4 programme A Good Read in 1998 to 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tsitsi Dangarembga</span> Zimbabwean author and filmmaker

Tsitsi Dangarembga is a Zimbabwean novelist, playwright and filmmaker. Her debut novel, Nervous Conditions (1988), which was the first to be published in English by a Black woman from Zimbabwe, was named by the BBC in 2018 as one of the top 100 books that have shaped the world. She has won other literary honours, including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the PEN Pinter Prize. In 2020, her novel This Mournable Body was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2022, Dangarembga was convicted in a Zimbabwe court of inciting public violence, by displaying, on a public road, a placard asking for reform.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kate Grenville</span> Australian author

Catherine Elizabeth Grenville is an Australian author. She has published fifteen books, including fiction, non-fiction, biography, and books about the writing process. In 2001, she won the Orange Prize for The Idea of Perfection, and in 2006 she won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for The Secret River. The Secret River was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

This article provides a selected list of fictional stories in which Spiritualism features as an important plot element. The list omits passing mentions.

Carrie Tiffany is an English-born Australian novelist and former park ranger.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hilary Mantel</span> British writer (1952–2022)

Dame Hilary Mary Mantel was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, Every Day Is Mother's Day, was released in 1985. She went on to write 12 novels, two collections of short stories, a personal memoir, and numerous articles and opinion pieces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kei Miller</span> Jamaican poet and fiction writer

Kei Miller is a Jamaican poet, fiction writer, essayist and blogger. He is also a professor of creative writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Burns</span> Irish writer

Anna Burns FRSL is an author from Northern Ireland. Her novel Milkman won the 2018 Booker Prize, the 2019 Orwell Prize for political fiction, and the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernardine Evaristo</span> British author and academic (born 1959)

Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo is a British author and academic. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019 alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, making her the first Black woman to win the Booker. Evaristo is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London and President of the Royal Society of Literature, the second woman and the first black person to hold the role since it was founded in 1820.

<i>Wolf Hall</i> Historical novel by Hilary Mantel

Wolf Hall is a 2009 historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth Estate, named after the Seymour family's seat of Wolfhall, or Wulfhall, in Wiltshire. Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, Wolf Hall is a sympathetic fictionalised biography documenting the rapid rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII through to the death of Sir Thomas More. The novel won both the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2012, The Observer named it as one of "The 10 best historical novels".

<i>Bring Up the Bodies</i> Historical novel by Hilary Mantel

Bring Up the Bodies is an historical novel by Hilary Mantel; sequel to the award-winning Wolf Hall; and part of a trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, the powerful minister in the court of King Henry VIII. It won the 2012 Booker Prize and the 2012 Costa Book of the Year. The final novel in the trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, was published in March 2020.

The 2012 Booker Prize for Fiction was awarded on 16 October 2012. A longlist of twelve titles was announced on 25 July, and these were narrowed down to a shortlist of six titles, announced on 11 September. The jury was chaired by Sir Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement, accompanied by literary critics Dinah Birch and Bharat Tandon, historian and biographer Amanda Foreman, and Dan Stevens, actor of Downton Abbey fame with a background English Literature studies. The jury was faced with the controversy of the 2011 jury, whose approach had been seen as overly populist. Whether or not as a response to this, the 2012 jury strongly emphasised the value of literary quality and linguistic innovation as criteria for inclusion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Perry</span> English author

Sarah Grace Perry is an English author. She has had three novels published, all by Serpent's Tail: After Me Comes the Flood (2014), The Essex Serpent (2016) and Melmoth (2018). Her work has been translated into 22 languages. She was appointed Chancellor of the University of Essex in July 2023.

<i>The Mirror and the Light</i> Book by Hilary Mantel

The Mirror & The Light is a historical novel by the English writer Hilary Mantel. Following Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012), it is the final instalment in her trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, minister in the court of King Henry VIII, covering the last four years of his life, from 1536 until his death by execution in 1540.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2020 Booker Prize</span> British literary award given in 2020

The 2020 Booker Prize for Fiction was announced on 19 November 2020. The Booker longlist of 13 books was announced on 27 July, and was narrowed down to a shortlist of six on 15 September. The Prize was awarded to Douglas Stuart for his debut novel, Shuggie Bain, receiving £50,000. Stuart is the second Scottish author to win the Booker Prize, after it was awarded to James Kelman for How Late It Was, How Late in 1994. The ceremony was hosted by John Wilson at the Roundhouse in Central London, and broadcast by the BBC. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the shortlisted authors and guest speakers appeared virtually from their respective homes.

References

  1. "Beyond Black | Hilary Mantel | Macmillan". US Macmillan. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  2. Mantel, Hilary (2005). Beyond Black. Harper Perennial. ISBN   9780007157761.