Devil is in the detail

Bellman & Black, A Ghost Story

For every reader who might be attracted by the ghostly subtitle, many more are likely to be put off by what they imagine it might entail. That would be a real pity. The author writes well. There’s an impressive narrative drive without there ever being a feeling the story is being forced along. It has the meticulous and quite particular research that informs for instance Patrick Susskind’s Perfume and she bears her knowledge lightly.

The opening sequence is a tremendous evocation of childhood as a bunch of lads wander the fields of what feels like Thomas Hardy’s England. Of course every self-respecting young fella needs a decent catapult and the titular Bellman naturally has one that is finely crafted from a perfectly chosen branch.

Then comes a key event. Ten-year-old William Bellman lines up a shot at a lone rook on a branch of a distant tree. His friends bet there’s no way he’ll make the shot. He does, and the bird falls to the ground. Amid the excitement of his friends, William feels a heart-sinking dismay. Even as the sprung stone flies in a perfectly judged arc towards its target the youngster wants some intervention to prevent the killing of the bird — even for the creature to take flight at the last moment.

The rook casts a shadow over the life of Bellman. He marries, has children, and works his way up at the local mill, to the point where he runs the place. The detail on the spinning of cloths is described in detail as is the process of dying materials. Tragedy strikes the village and Bellman’s family in the form of a contagious fatal illness — something that Setterfield again handles evocatively but without recourse to sensationalism.

There is a meeting with a dark stranger that sets Bellman off on another course, establishing a wonderfully successful store on Regent Street in London for the supplying of funeral clothing. People are dying, the die is cast and every hue of black cloth is lovingly described as rooks appear from the shadows. It is quite a heady and atmospheric mix. There are several asides about the evolutionary history of rooks, their place in folklore and so on but it is a well-placed stylistic indulgence in a book that creates its sense of time, place and character with an ease and economy.

As for the ghostliness of it, that is also deftly handled and is more in keeping with the psychology of the central character than any outlandish flight into ghoulish fantasy territory.

It is tricky to write about this book without giving the game away but it is a well-told story where, in keeping with the overall mood, the end is muted rather than hysterical, even if the recesses of the reader’s imagination might suggest that it is headed to a fiery end.