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Reader's Paradise

Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel

20 years ago

I've started reading this novel and I find it so morbidly fascinating. It's about a fat psychic, not my usual fare, and it's dark dark dark, but in a funny way.

The book came to my attention when I read the list of authors' picks on The Guardian Online site. John Banville, A.S. Byatt, Zadie Smith and Philip Pullman all listed it among their top books of the year. Banville said it should have been nominated for the Booker. I'm curious as to why a book that is so lauded flew relatively low under the radar.

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Comments (2)

friedag
20 years ago
I bought this book because I've read and liked several of Mantel's other novels, as well as her memoir, Giving Up the Ghost. I haven't read Beyond Black yet, though.

I don't why this time Mantel's effort was overlooked by the Booker people. I think she's had books on the Booker longlists in various years, and I thought she had been shortlisted, but apparently not (I looked it up) -- I must have been thinking of some other prize.

Some of Mantel's early work reminds me strongly of Muriel Spark's writing, particularly An Experiment in Love seems very similar to The Girls of Slender Means. Then Mantel wrote the gargantuan historical novel A Place of Greater Safety about the French Revolution and The Giant, O'Brien, another historical. She has developed greater scope really than I thought she ever would.

Be sure to let us know what you think of Beyond Black when you finish. I don't know when I'll get around to reading it, but I'm sure I will.
martin_z
20 years ago
I finished this recently. I enjoyed it - not the sort of book I'd normally pick up, but I used my RP Christmas book token from you all (!)

The people (living and dead!) were very convincing. It was quite a sad sort of book, really. I did wonder at the necessity of the heroine (sorry - forgotten her name) having such a hideous childhood. Bizarrely, I can't remember exactly how it ended - I just remember that I didn't find it very satisfactory.

It was long-listed for the Booker - that's hardly "under the radar". And this year's short-list was phenomenally good; Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie were long-listed but missed the short-list, so Hilary Mantel was in good company.
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