It's raw, this kind of work, and near the knuckle: unsupported by music, lighting, video screen, it's just you and them an…It's raw, this kind of work, and near the knuckle: unsupported by music, lighting, video screen, it's just you and them and the dead, the dead who may oblige or may not, who may confuse and mislead and laugh at you, who may give you bursts of foul language very close up to your ear, who may give you false names and lay false trails just to see you embarrassed.Alison is a medium and a consummate performer. She soothes her audience, gains their trust and even shuts down hecklers with a few well chosen words. She suffers fools, if not gladly, then grudgingly; they are her bread and butter, after all. The catch is, this "fake" psychic really does see dead people. Poor Al has not had a happy life. She spent her childhood being bullied and tormented by her mother's "gentlemen callers" who were also paying clients with criminal tendencies and vicious dispositions. Now, she's at the mercy of her snide business partner, Colette, who picks at her endlessly about her weight. As if that's not bad enough, her spirit guide, an evil little heavy-drinking imp, has been hanging out with a truly nasty crowd - the very fiends who made Alison's childhood so miserable.People are right to be afraid of ghosts. If you get people who are bad in life - I mean, cruel people, dangerous people - why do you think they're going to be any better after they're dead?This is one "sensitive" with a few too many demons to exorcise. Though slow in places, it is beautifully written. The world beyond the glass is the world of masculine action. Everything she sees is what a man has built. But at each turn-off, each junction, women are waiting to know their fate. They are looking deep inside themselves, into their private hearts, where the foetus forms and buds, where the shape forms inside the crystal, where fingernails click softly …