This was another book in a set that I got for my birthday, and I was quite surprised to learn that apparently it is well-known, as one of my teachers told me. It is about a woman called Alison, who is a fortune teller of sorts, who travels around performing in shows accompanied by her put-upon assistant Collette. It is basically a very long character study, following Alison as she discovers details about her past, some of which are pretty harrowing. There are some great characters in this piece, that she meets along the way, and as readers we are given every possible detail about them, so you really get a sense of what drives them. Obviously in such a bizarre setting, there are a lot of unique personalities, including many that are spirit guides, which were really interesting to hear about.
I really enjoyed the style of the novel, as it mocked the seriousness of itself in parts, and had a believable voice behind it. I particularly liked Hilary Mantel's description of 'The Other Side':
'Spirit world...is a garden...litter-free like an old-fashioned park, with a bandstand in a heat haze in the distance. Here the dead sit in rows on benches, families together, on gravelled paths between weed-less beds, where heat- sozzled flowers bob their heads, heavy with the scent of eau de Cologne: their petals crawling with furry, intelligent, stingless bees... They eat picnics with silver forks; purely for pleasure, because they never feel hunger, nor gain weight. No wind blows there, only a gentle breeze, the temperature being controlled at a moderate 71F.'
I enjoyed this book overall, although it didn't really feel like there was a main plot-line to it, which made some bits drag a bit as they didn't appear to have much point. I would be interested to read another book by the same author, to see if this is a theme that runs throughout her other work. One thing to be commended is her success in dealing with such a fragile subject as death and the afterlife, as she somehow managed to make parts comical, despite having quite grim topics at their core:
'There are unlicensed workings and laboratories underground, mutants breeding in the tunnels; there are cannibal moo-cows and toxic bunnikins, and behind the drawn curtains of hospital wards there are bugs that eat the flesh.'
It gave the book a slightly dark and twisted feel, that I thoroughly enjoyed, as it was so refreshing and different to anything else that I have read recently.
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