Burncoat by Sarah Hall



Not the longest of books , but one that will remain with me for a long time.
I've read most of Sarah's books and I like the way they often incorporate Cumbria , which is where I live. Stark , remote , at times awe inspiring , bleak , lonely , for me descriptions that for this title also.
It's about a person , Edith , who is just about surviving a pandemic which sounds more horrific that the one we are currently experiencing.
It's also about her mother , Edith had to cope with her mother having a stroke when she was still a young girl and the horrors that brought.
Sarah Hall manages to get under the skin of Edith as she reflects on people from her life now dead , those that are struggling as she is , and those that are trying to help her recover.
Not a joyous book by any mark , but one that makes you realise that hope , and the determination to carry on right to the end for better days are in us all .

Art, Desire, Love, Death, Isolation..and a Deadly Virus

I have read several books by Hall, who is such an interesting writer, grappling with weighty themes, and always with a strong connection to the natural world and its challenging problems

It is important to note that while she began writing this one on the first day of the first lockdown in 2020, this is not a novel about this pandamic. Rather, it is a novel which explores ‘the bigger one’ which many scientists have talked about, and which serious political and scientific planners and envisioners have urged needs planning for. Indeed, it was the earlier planning for another ‘flu like’ pre-Covid exercise which showed how woefully prepared we would be for any similar pandemic to come. And so it has proved

Though there is definitely much to ponder about, pandemic wise, in this short and powerful novel, there are also other themes which are as central. One is art and creativity. The central character is something of a spiky, unique, visual artist, one outside mainstream popularity, but who nevertheless, as a trail-blazer, hits some node of depth – as I thought further about this, Tracey Emin seemed a possible place imagination might have started from.

There is beautiful writing about the physicality of things, their embodiment. This is not surprising, as Edith Harkness, the central character, is a sculptor. She has grown up the child of a fierce creative woman with a degenerative neurological condition. Death has been her stalking companion

“We are figures briefly drawn in space, given temporary form in exchange for consciousness, sense, a chance. We are ready-mades, disposables. How do we live every last moment as this – savant dust?”

The hard physical labour of Edith’s art, which is much involved with treated felled wood, is described with a precision so detailed that the reader feels the work must indeed exist outside imagination. In this, I was reminded of Siri Hustvedt’s “What I Loved” The central character in that was also an artist, and the richness of description on the making of the artworks had me Googling their titles, so convinced was I that I could see the works so clearly in my mind’s eye that I wanted to check their external reality against my Hustvedt painted imagination

Other physicalities are also explored, the delight of embodiment – sex – fiercely, tenderly, erotically described explorations between two lovers discovering each other. And also food – Edith’s partner is Halit, immigrant from another culture, at the border of Europe and the Middle East who owns and runs a small restaurant in Cumbria. Inhabiting that particular landscape also embraces the life of the body.

Halit also makes Edith (and us) think about how different cultures startle us with their strangeness.

“I’d not yet learned that men from your country possess incautious joy towards children”

Identity, both individual and collective is another major theme, and its intricate connection indeed with our embodiment, the boundaries between me and not me. The physical descriptions of illness, dying, death. These are of course wrenching, painful, but there is a kind of stoic transcendence, no other way to explain this, that I have met before, witnessed, and heard recounted by others who have been in that place of closeness with a friend or family member dying through natural causes

What this is absolutely NOT is any kind of ‘this is a hot and marketable topic for the creation of a blockbuster bit of operatic gothic’ – the breakdown of society caused by some strange apocalyptic virus type of hype thing.

Given the weight and sorrow of some of the major themes, there is something curiously uplifting, a reminder of the moments of glory in the fact that each of us, ‘savant dust’ is a figure briefly drawn in space

The Mother/daughter relationship is really good and I think this built up well. Other scenes were a bit scatty and this jumps around a bit too much for me.
Still a delicate read whilst we're in a pandemic and recognise some of this a bit too well. Maybe in a few years we'll look at this in a different light.

Burntcoat is a novella of the recollections of Edith Harkness now aged 59 and facing a death from something resembling Long Covid. She is an artist of renown and Burntcoat is her huge studio where she lives, works and will ultimately die. It recounts memories of her mother Naomi and of her childhood, her training in the art of Shou Sugi Ban, burnt wood, a technique she learns in Japan, her love affair with Halit of Bulgarian/Turkish origin and the impact of a terrible pandemic known as AG3 - novavirus.

First of all, there is absolutely no doubt that this is beautifully written. In places it’s lyrical, there are some original and powerful images that will stick in my mind for a long time they’re so stunningly creative. Her mother Naomi I find especially fascinating and the sections where she is in the narrative are the ones I most enjoy. I love the art element, the huge pieces she creates (think scale of the Angel of the North) are visually amazing and are described so well you can see them in your minds eye. Her passionate affair with Halit is very emotionally charged and intense.

However, unfortunately the book has a number of sections I do not care for. The non linear format takes some getting used to and initially it’s very confusing. The pandemic which is worse than Covid and seems more like a plague, is utterly depressing with descriptions that are graphic and unpleasant. There is a lot of gratuitous sex that seem unnecessary and it just gets too much especially as the author has already made clear the passion Edith and Halit feel for each other.

Overall , it’s a disturbing book in many ways and leaves me feeling very unsettled which is probably the intention. I’m sure other readers will love this book but it’s one I only like parts of.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Faber and Faber for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

There is a dreamlike quality to the writing here at times, which makes the horrific details of illness and death even more stark than they would be otherwise. Taking the COVID pandemic as it’s inspiration, this story is set in another, different pandemic, but with the same horror, death and restrictions. The protagonist, Edith, internally relives her life as the pandemic takes hold in London - her traumatic childhood, her life as a sculptor of enormous wooden artefacts and her recreation of a dilapidated London warehouse into Burntcoat, where she lives and works. In many ways, this novel is not for the faint hearted, as the descriptions of illness and death are harrowing, and the writing about sex vivid. There is something here to keep the reader turning the pages though, and I think it will be one of the most masterful literary responses to COVID.

A remarkable, powerful response to the pandemic. Edith, the narrator is an acclaimed if controversial artist creating large-scale sculptures. As the work on her last piece – national memorial to those who died – draws to a close, so does her life and she reminisces about her childhood and family, love, loss, and art. Burntcoat is an outstanding novel, beautifully written and intimate. It felt deeply personal as well as political. And while I don’t want to go into too much detail about the narrative, the relationship between Edith and her mother stands out as does Hall’s exploration of art and gender and art created for public spaces.

Hall’s pandemic is both like and unlike our own reality and I expect it will elicit different responses from readers and reviewers alike, I found it affecting. This slender novel will stay with me for some time. Highly recommended.

My thanks to Faber & Faber and Netgalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of Burntcoat.

Brutal, moving and terrifying in equal measure. The story of a virus, a sculptor and her retrospective of her life while she simultaneously suffers from the deadly virus and is creating a national memorial to the victims is intriguing, powerful and thought-provoking. The book looks at Edith's childhood, early adulthood and then her life after the world is hit by a virus deadlier than Covid. It's an early and a deep exploration of the impact Covid continues to have, and it captures some of the complex issues on how the world has changed beyond recognition for us all.

The title Burntcoat is quite evocative of the content held within. It is the name of the artist narrators’ large riverside unit where she produces her installation artworks made from wood that is burnt to make it stronger.
The artist themselves has also been made stronger through their life traumas, which are viscerally described in a jumbled fever dream of recollections of her childhood, apprenticeship and love found in a time of crisis.

Not only are we reading a non-linear narrative, however, but it gradually becomes apparent we are in a parallel world close to our own (initially signalled by the prime minister being a woman) but the pandemic outcomes are now more catastrophic than we experienced: extreme civil unrest, a breakdown in services and a more virulent and devastating epidemic with long term death sentences for many infected and initially spared. It was a depressing read, confirming human tendencies: “We will do it differently.. Consume less, conserve more.. Of course, the old ways return..”

It was bold and graphic in its descriptions of illness and sex - both of which I found unsettling and, much like being scoured with a verbal blowtorch. It is powerful stuff and the writing is so carefully constructed as to be a read-through installation.

I found Burntcoat an uncomfortable read and a novel which I find difficult to rate. Sarah Hall started writing this book as COVID 19 lockdown began in the UK. A pandemic (not COVID 19) and confinement are a major thread of the story with horrific descriptions not only of the illness but of inhumane responses to the pandemic at personal, cultural and institutional levels.
The narrator of the tale, Edith, is a large scale sculptor and I did enjoy reading about her work processes and results. Edith's mother, Naomi, suffered a debilitating brain haemorrhage when Edith was 8 years old and much of the story is about the relationship between mother, daughter and the mother's disability. This relationship was really well written. A shared feature of the two women's lives is the compartmentalising of their work by the male establishment who put down Edith's sculptures as folk art and Naomi's novels as gothic.
The fears and anxieties of living during a pandemic are certainly well tackled by Hall. As may well have happened for many couples the narrator has just started a new relationship at the outset of the pandemic and this quickly becomes a living together arrangement as they deal with the need for confinement. An aspect of the novel which I did not appreciate was the very explicit sex scenes between not only this couple but also Edith and other sexual partners.
Overall I appreciated Hall's writing and think Burntcoat will be lauded as a book of its time but I am not rushing to recommend the read.
My thanks to the publisher via Net Galley for a complimentary ARC of this title in return for an honest review.

Sarah Hall has to her name a Booker shortlisting (in 2004), a Booker longlisting (in 2009) and a selection as a Booker judge (in 2017 – a very odd year when the judges first I think respected what the prize should be about by picking the most acclaimed English language novels, only to then dump almost all of them at the shortlist stage) – and this book is published by Faber (who average 2 books a year on the 2016-21 longlists) so this book may well be a strong 2022 Booker contender.

The author is also a well known short story writer and the only one ever to win the BBC short story prize twice. She is also a writer of dystopian fiction – her “The Carhullan Army” was listed for the Arthur C Clarke Science Fiction award – and that is I think the most relevant comparison here.

The novel is told as first person recollections, ones which vary over time, by Edith Harkness. As a child her writer mother suffered a catastrophic brain bleed which caused huge damage and left her mentally incapacitated – causing Edith’s father to ultimately leave and Edith to grow up very fast.

Now nearing 60 she is a sculptress famous for her work with charred wood (using the Japanese art of Shou Sugi Ban). Some thirty years previously she won a lucrative art award – the Galeworth medal – for her huge and controversial free standing installation “The Witch” (think “The Angel of the North”) and with the proceeds decided to buy a huge old building/industrial warehouse – the eponymous Burntcoat which becomes her live-in studio. Burntcoat seems to me to be based in a City which draws heavily on the author’s current home of Norwich but transported to her birthplace of Cumbrian – where most of her novels are set.

There she started an intensely sexual relationship with Halit – a Bulgarian Turk and the two are together when a deadly virus – later known as Nonavirus and then AG3 – sweeps the world causing mass deaths (far more than COVID – around one million in the UK) and huge direct disruption (rather than the indirect chaos wrought by COVID).

Years later the AG3 version of long-COVID is also much more serious – with the virus capable of killing its victims decades after their infection – a fate which Edith now faces as she also looks to complete an installation which will mark the virus and its victims.

If I had a reservation about this book – and to be honest it is quite a strong reservation – it is that I do not really see why a novelistic response to COVID has to be about a very different virus. I recently read Sarah Moss’s “The Fell” and while it does not have anything the artistic ambition or imagination of this novel it was brave enough to actually deal with the real situation we have been living through – and to try to capture the experience of COVID (or more accurately lockdown) at a very specific time and place (England, November 2020 and the unexpected national lockdown).

Perhaps as this is a book about abstract art then the abstraction is appropriate but I felt it was unsatisfactory and for me rather (if not completely) diminished the power of the novel.

I think this was not helped by what seemed to me anomalies: despite the virus racking the world it seems that the first cases in the UK are “mistaken in the hospitals as something virulent and seasonal” (contrast and compare to what happens with actual viruses); later we are told that compensation is paid to both relatives of victims and to survivors “There have been mass suits – millions paid out” – putting aside whether this would really happen surely that should be “billions” (if not tens or hundreds of billions) – all of this weakening the verisimilitude of the novel and hence its impact – at least for me.

And I also felt that the novel was gratuitously sexual – a good example is in a brief discussion of people buying and then (again much quicker than actually occurred) dumping pet dogs which leads to a really rather ridiculous scene.

Overall I think this is a novel which will appeal to many but which did not to me – I felt the choice of dystopian fiction was overly conservative and lacking impact.

My thanks to Faber and Faber for an ARC via NetGalley

I’ve loved the author’s other books but this one was possibly even better. Rich and detailed but so well-plotted. Masterful.

”But it was in the brushing stage that his artistry showed. He would turn back his sleeve, never soil it. The motions were beautiful. Under the charred coat, the true grain was revealed, in dark vectors and knots, patterns so suggestive they became stories.”

This quote refers to the ancient Japanese art of Shou Sugi Ban in which the surface of cedar wood is charred until it turns black. The original purpose of Shou Sugi Ban was to weatherproof and preserve the wood, but it has become popular as a design element in the home. In the quote, an artist is is brushing the charred coat to reveal the beauty in the wood beneath.

Edith Harkness is a sculptor whose works are based on this ancient Japanese art with her most famous work being the Witch, a huge installation that is reminiscent of The Angel of the North. It was the prize money from this work that enabled her to buy Burntcoat where, at the time of the book, she is living alone making, as the blurb says, her “final preparations”. As she prepares, she looks back on periods in her life: her childhood with a mother who suffered a life changing medical condition, her early artistic career and, most significantly for this book, her relationship with a man called Halit with whom she lived at Burntcoat during a global pandemic.

This is not a happy book although it does try to instil some human dignity in the midst of suffering and death. It may not be happy, but it is powerful and it is intense. In the interests of honesty, there were times when I found it all a bit too intense. In fact, I had to wait a while after finishing the book before trying to write anything about it. I knew going into the book that it was inspired by COVID and written during lockdown, but I hadn’t reckoned with the emotional and mental response I would have: it turns out that (and I didn’t know this about myself) I was not really ready to cope with books about pandemics that paint such a bleak prognosis (the virus in this book has a twist in its tale that took me to a dark place).

So, ultimately, having given the book a bit of time to settle, I am giving it 5 stars because it takes what we have all lived through over the last 18 months and turns it into a work of art that generates, at least in me, a gut response unlike the response I have had to any book that I can think of. At the time of reading it was hard work, but on reflection it is a thing of beauty. And in the intensity it finds time to look at how we find meaning in life through art (important to me as a photographer who aims to create something artistic rather than a record of events) and at the struggle women face to find acceptance in a male-dominated arena.

The Stereophonics released an album in 2003 called “You Gotta Go There To Come Back” and this is a bit what reading this book feels like. It takes you to a difficult place, but it brings you back. Maybe you could say it chars the surface but then polishes it to create something stronger and more resilient.

This was an intense read - I've actively avoided pandemic-related books until now to be honest, because it's hard enough to deal with in life. However, I can see the definite potential for great creative lierate works to come out of this time, and whilst this was personally difficult to read I also found it… sort of comforting? I think mainly because it is from the perspective of a main character looking back on the pandemic as a survivor rather than currently experiencing it. I guess it put a perspective onto it of 'this will be over one day'.

Burntcoat is a short and very poignant novel about a semi-famous sculptor, Edith. It's about loss and love pre-pandemic (between her and her mother, who suffered a brain haemorrhage that caused them both trauma), about love and loss during the pandemic (Edith and her partner are locked in together under quarantine), and the survivor's guilt, trauma and healing process post-pandemic.

The pandemic in question often has very similar traits to covid-19, where the author is perhaps drawing on experience, but it also has a much more insidious physical trait which kind of serves to show how much worse things could be. It is extraordinary how relatable a lot of it is, and yet also how often you count your lucky stars that it wasn't you calling a body collection service to remove deceased loved ones..

It took me a little while to get into the rhythm of Burntcoat - the timeline jumps around a bit with little warning and as it's free of chapters and virtually no space-breakers it sometimes threw me. But the prose itself was very deep and moving, so one I won't mind reading again to pick up on what I missed.

<i>We are who we are, there's little point pretending otherwise.</i>

This is the second of the two COVID-era novels I received recently from NetGalley, along with the new Sarah Moss novel. Out of the two, this one felt more 'literary' to me - the writing style is more poetic and lyrical, whereas the Sarah Moss is all about the straightforward, stark prose, and close third person narration. I ended up liking the Sarah Moss one more because it felt more optimistic to me (I know, I'm BASIC), but the overall 'message' in <i>Burntcoat</i> is probably more complicated and risky, and needs more unpacking. Again, it's stupid to compare these two incredibly talented authors, but since these are both two forthcoming novels about a pandemic and the experience of it, it's hard not too.

What was most interesting to me about <i>Burntcoat</i> (among many interesting things) is that it's NOT about COVID - it's about another virus that is much more contagious and serious. I liked this decision because it raised the stakes, and it also gave me some emotional distance from the material. Some readers may find it unnecessary, but I was fine with it. What is most interesting about Hall's version of the virus is that it 'lives on' in your body, and can strike later at any time. This is obviously an interesting metaphor for how society and individuals 'live on' with the scars of a disease (in the novel's case, it's still LITERALLY present, in the survivors' bodies). This is another reason why I think it was smart of Hall to not make the novel's virus COVID - it's fiction, so it's fine to deal with fictional possibilities and metaphorical possibilities, rather than actual science and facts.

One critique I have of the novel is that I found the standing in line for bread scene (in which a man attacks an Asian woman) a bit too broadly sketched for my personal tastes. I suppose it communicates an important message (and also depicts real life racism that was happening during COVID, is still happening, etc.) but my personal preference is for fiction that is more subtle. It was just a bit too blunt for me. I still think one of the best 'political' scenes in a novel I've read in recent years was in Olivia Sudjic's <i>Asylum Road</i>, in the passage about migrating jellyfish - THAT was a really EXCELLENT example IMHO of writing using tools that are arguably fundamental to fiction (metaphor, subtext, imagery) in order to make a political argument about the freedom of movement, without coming off as "communicating" or "telling" a message to the reader. Anyway, I'm rambling!

The other mild critique I have about the book is that sometimes it felt like it was about too much for me - thematically, that is. Specifically, I'm not sure how the narrative strand about the mother and her stroke tied in with everything. I guess it ties in with the theme about women and their work/art? It just seemed to me that the mother recovered very quickly and very conveniently (particularly in the scene where she confronts the shitty boyfriend). Maybe I was unfairly comparing it to the characters recovering from strokes in Jon McGregor's excellent novel <i>Lean Fall Stand</i>, who seemed to struggle a lot more. I also think I'm unfairly comparing this to Sarah Moss' <i>The Fell</i>, which is VERY narratively tight and focused. Anyway, it's also arguably a strength of this book - it's ambitious, and attempts to cover a lot. A whole lifetime, basically.

The main thing I really liked about this book was the focus on sex. Lots of sex scenes! Very passionate. I liked how this was a contrast to the theme of DEATH. <spoiler>The scene where he pretends to be a dog is very perverted!!</spoiler> Basically, all the scenes with the boyfriend pre and during pandemic - his backstory, what ends up happening to him - were the most interesting and powerful parts of the book for me. It really got me thinking about how on our deathbeds, that's probably what we're going to focus on - our loved ones, our friends and family, our person to person connections, rather than politics.

The other interesting theme in this book is the narrator's artwork - her sculptures. I found the description of the stork and wolf sculpture particularly cool, and the sections about learning wood burning techniques in Japan.

It was also nice to read a book that is set in Norwich, where I currently live. I don't think the novel ever explicitly says it's Norwich, but things like the cathedral, the market, and also the fact that I know Sarah Hall lives in Norwich kind of influence my reading of it!

Overall, this was really beautifully written - you can really see here how Hall's background in poetry has just made her a really STRONG writer, in terms of writing distinct, memorable, rhythmic sentences. It's a nice contrast to the 'blank' prose of a lot of mainstream literary fiction TBH (which don't get me wrong, I totally love!). Ultimately this will likely be read (and deserves to be read) as a valuable contribution to contemporary British literature, as it will arguably help readers initiate conversations and discuss WHAT THE HELL WE'VE ALL BEEN THROUGH the past year. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

<i>The body is a wound, a bell ringing in emergency--life, life, life.</i>

I am quite impressed and saddened by this dark and wise novel about a sculptor looking back at her life and in particular living through a Covid-like pandemic locked down with her lover. She is a survivor and lives to tell the story, although she never fully recovers from the virus herself. The novel captures the most fearful moments of the pandemic very well, imagining how it could have been even worse than it was and speculating about the potential future fallout in a thought-provoking way. The writing is very good, even though it took me some time to get into - I did not pick up on some things and only now, browsing through it after finishing, the elements fall into place. The style is less accessible than that of the authors on the blurb (Daisy Johnson, Sarah Perry), although it is clear why these two were asked to support it. Highly recommended (but don’t expect to be a much happier person afterwards).

Sarah Hall apparently began writing Burntcoat on the first day of the UK’s COVID-related lockdown in March of 2020 (finding time to work in the early hours before homeschooling her daughter) and everything about this novel struck me as a perfect literary response to what Hall (and the rest of us) lived through over the last year. I have appreciated other recent novels that serve to record some of the specific details of the living-through-a-pandemic experience, but Burntcoat is the first I’ve read that puts that experience through the crucible of artistic sensibility and turns the details into art. This novel engaged me on every level, the language provoked and delighted me, and I think it’s as near a perfect response to these crazy times as we are likely to get.

When, in 2020, with the onset of Covid-19, the world started shutting down and whole populations were being shut inside, literature was – at least for some of us – a way of escaping the terrors of the present or, perhaps, trying to make sense of them. Gothic, horror and post-apocalyptic fiction seemed particularly adept at reflecting the all-pervasive end-of-times atmosphere.

Burntcoat by Sarah Hall is, however, one of the first novels – and, although admittedly a bold claim, possibly the first literary masterpiece – to be written during lockdown and to explicitly reference Covid-19. It is narrated by 59-year old Edith Harkness, a survivor, who surveys the life-changing pandemic with the benefit of intervening time.

The images Edith describes are familiar, even though the virus featured in the novel is actually much deadlier than the “novel coronavirus”, leading to one million deaths in the United Kingdom alone:

"The virus has shed its initial and older names. They were frightening, incorrect, discriminatory. Hanta. Nova. Now it is simply AG3. It is contained; an event in a previous era from which we continue to learn. Contingency planning. Social tracking. Herd control. The picture of the pathogen– orange and reticulated– has become as recognisable as the moon. Children sketch it in science lessons, the curious arms, proteins and spikes. The civic notices listing symptoms, and the slogans, look vintage ...

The images are so strong from that time. The nurse standing in the empty aisle, her back to us, hair dishevelled and her uniform crumpled, the weight of the shopping basket, though it is empty, pulling her body downwards. The Pope, kneeling in the rain in a deserted St Peter’s Square."

Edith is a visual artist. Her expertise lies in the creation of large-scale wooden sculptures, using a technique learnt in Japan. A major success in her 20s finances her acquisition of Burntcoat, a large riverside warehouse-like building at the outskirts of an unnamed British town. Burntcoat is at once her studio and her residence, a labour of love. On the announcement of lockdown, it is to Burntcoat that she retires, accompanied by restaurant-owner Halit, the new-found lover with whom she has just started a relationship.

Edith’s story, just like many of the present generations, will be marked by the pandemic. We meet her at the opening of the novel, putting the finishing touches on a commission meant to mark the victims of the pandemic, which prompts her recollections of that painful event. But Edith’s story is not just about the lockdown months, about the deaths and devastation. It is also about other aspects of her life – such as growing up with her mother, an author recovering from a severe stroke; the loss of her father, who abandoned the family when they most needed him; the growth of Edith’s artistic career. But, as one would expect, the novel keeps circling around those (literally and figuratively) feverish months.

At one point in the novel, Edith is discussing Naomi’s work with her agent Karolina. Critics have reassessed her mother’s writing, she tells us,

… the label of Gothic stripped off like cheap varnish. Karoline once said to me the term is used for women whose work the establishment enjoys but doesn’t respect. Men are the existentialists.

Leaving aside for the moment the problematic implication that the Gothic is cheap (alas, a centuries-old prejudice), this sounds much like an apology for Hall’s own novel. Indeed, although not primarily fascinated with “the ghostly, the ghastly and the supernatural”, to borrow Dale Townshend’s succinct definition of the Gothic, the novel does visit the tropes of the genre, exploiting them to great effect. The symptoms of the virus skirt body horror. The violence and breakdown of society echo post-apocalyptic fiction. Burntcoat itself might not be plagued by literal ghosts, but it is visited by illness and death and haunted by memories, a contemporary urban version of the possessed Gothic mansion. But Burntcoat is also, defiantly, a novel about life, love, and lust. Edith’s ground-breaking creations find a parallel in the (very explicit) sex scenes, which hungrily, almost desperately, challenge the impending siege of the virus.

Just like her narrator Edith, in Burntcoat Sarah Hall has given us a poetic tribute to the all those who have suffered losses during Covid. I perfectly understand that describing a work as a tribute is ambivalent praise. Because, admittedly, tributes tend to stick to safe ground, to seek a “common denominator” which will gain as wide approval as possible. Edith certainly doesn’t do so with her transgressive works. Similarly, Hall comes up with a work which might challenge some sensibilities, but which is also incredibly moving and ends, albeit without any sentimentality, on a note of cautious hope.

It took me a little while to fall into the rhythm of Hall's writing and to find my footing with the style of Burntcoat - the timeline jumps around a bit with little warning - but once I'd got there I found this hard to put down.

Set in a contemporary UK which is ravaged by a pandemic (sound familiar? The virus in Hall's novel is called by another name, AG3/Novavirus, but its effects are all too similar.), we follow a sculptor, Edith, who lives above her studio in London - a crumbling warehouse called Burntcoat which she has renovated and retreated to in the wake of something of a downward spiral following her professional success. Without wishing to provide any spoilers - I feel like the book is complexly structured and it may be reductive to try and explain exactly what it's about - this is a novel about coping with the emotional and physical destruction ravaged by a pandemic, and rebuilding one's live in the wake of physical trauma. It's also a love story, and one I found to be truly moving in a number of ways.

I hope to see this on prize lists this year and next, and look forward to checking out more of Hall's writing.

“I’m the wood in the fire. I’ve experienced, altered in nature. I am burnt, damaged, more resilient. A life is a bead of water on the black surface, so frail, so strong, its world incredibly held.”

Sarah Hall's 6th novel, Burntcoat, is a beautifully written story of artistic creation, love (and lust), and the aftermath of medical trama both personal (a severe stroke) and societal (a Covid-like epidemic). On the latter, she said of the book's origins, when the publishing deal with Faber & Faber was announced:

“On the first day of lockdown in March last year I woke up very early and started writing. That morning, everything felt eerily shrouded and in jeopardy. I remember a similar feeling from childhood. You’d wake to heavy silence, a sense of event. Some spring snow would have obliterated the valley overnight, and you’d have to dig out. Every morning, I got up and wrote while it was still dark. I was homeschooling my daughter, so I only had those hours. I’m not saying I was particularly equipped. But some part of me — a kind of first responder — wanted to work. I’ve been heartbroken by the last year, in so many ways. We all are. Like Burntcoat’s protagonist, I know art can’t really offer a cure. But I had to write this book.”

The novel is narrated by Edith Harkness, aged 59. Edith is a prize-winning sculptress, working on huge installations inspired by the Japanese art of <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakisugi">Yakisugi</a> (also known as Shou Sugi Ban), charring word to preserve it. Her most famous piece an Angel-of-the-North type installation, the Witch, by the side of a major road:

“In the interview I was asked if my proposal was realistic, whether it would exceed the funding, who my influences were. My answers were brief, disengaging. González, Gentileschi, Oppenheim– her Bern fountain with its tufa and lichen.”

See: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/meret-oppenheim-fountain

The Witch won a major prize which funded her acquisition of Burntcoat, a huge abandoned building that she turns into her residence and studio:

“I was twenty-nine when I bought Burntcoat. I’d just won the Galeworth medal, and a staggering amount of money. The Witch had been standing at the Scotch Corner junction for a year, her controversy also rampant. Hecky had divided the nation. She was magnificent, unique, a testament to the creativity of the north. She was an eyesore, an obscenity, there were petitions to remove her.
...
Burntcoat stands at the edge of the old industrial part of the city, where the riverbank links workers’ cottages, trade buildings and docks. Friends with houses in the Victorian wards thought I was mad to want to live here, until I explained how much space I needed. The building’s records are incomplete so I don’t know what its primary purpose was. Storage, auction, an exchange for cattle and cargo brought upstream from the estuary, or perhaps it was used to mend masts. It was half-ruined when I bought it, full of pigeon shit, cans and condoms. Almost two centuries of disrepair and illicit use had left it scarred, historically unlisted and cheap. The name is inexplicable in the deeds– some eponymous merchant’s, an incendiary event. I admit, it was the name that made me want the building, as well as the proportions. Such things shouldn’t be meaningful, but they are. Even renovated, Burntcoat is ugly by most standards, a utilitarian warehouse, but it stands beside the river’s lambency– a hag in a bright mirror. Sometimes people pause on the road outside, trying to read the writing on the bricks. This section of river is slow and opaque, calke-green, with acidic willows above the metal sidings, chained entry points and steps that disappear down into the water. Graffiti on the bridges. Skeins of debris and oil on the surface. The old wooden boathouses have been demolished or have buckled with rot, the mills converted into chic flats now.”

Some years before the novel opens the country, indeed the world, has been hit by a Covid-like epidemic:

“The virus has shed its initial and older names. They were frightening, incorrect, discriminatory. Hanta. Nova. Now it is simply AG3. It is contained; an event in a previous era from which we continue to learn. Contingency planning. Social tracking. Herd control. The picture of the pathogen– orange and reticulated– has become as recognisable as the moon. Children sketch it in science lessons, the curious arms, proteins and spikes. The civic notices listing symptoms, and the slogans, look vintage.
...
The images are so strong from that time. The nurse standing in the empty aisle, her back to us, hair dishevelled and her uniform crumpled, the weight of the shopping basket, though it is empty, pulling her body downwards. The Pope, kneeling in the rain in a deserted St Peter’s Square. Cuban volunteer doctors exiting the plane in Naples, where a new variant has become unstoppable, their faces like bronze casts, the hands of the airport workers frozen mid-applause. And a plane full of equipment sitting on the runway at Heathrow, its cargo door closing, caught in some snare of bureaucracy. The Welsh doctor who has cut the bottom off a large water cooler and placed it over his head as a mask– ripples in the plastic amplifying the ripples in his brow; he would be among the first medical staff to die. I’ve looked at those images often, the spontaneous moments– which seem to frieze history, to make it, in a fixed moment, epic, still kinetic with human dynamics.”

Although the Novavirus/AG3 is an order of magnitude worse than Covid - one million dead with a consequent more severe collapse in the social order - and also a virus which remains latent in the victim, in temporary remission but not cured. Now Edith is finishing her final piece of work - another sculpture as a memorial to those who died and will still die - final because the virus is resurfacing in her system and Edith knows she is dying.

The novel's timelines shift in Edith's recollections as she looks back on different parts of her life, most notably:

- the after-effects of her mother's severe stroke, which leaves her transformed mentally and physically, and leads Edith's father to leave the family home: “When I was eight, my mother died and Naomi arrived” - Edith using Naomi to refer to her mother after the stroke;

- her artistic career, including time spent in Japan which has fused her with something of an East-Asian philosophy of life as well as inspiring her work, including a visit to the real-life island of Teshima and its art museum designed by Ryue Nishizawa; https://www.architectural-review.com/today/teshima-art-museum-by-ryue-nishizawa-teshima-island-japan

“When I entered Teshima, a domed installation Shun had insisted I visit, I understood some form of perfection had been achieved. The space was total, its own mind. Through the oculi, sky itself was art, and light travelled in moons across the wall. Groundwater rose through a million pressure holes in the floor, and droplets shifted towards others, joining, trickling, playing with their own constant difference. It was chaos and peace. Nothing had prepared me for the emotion I felt there, the acceptance, finding myself in tears and becoming part of the flood.”

- and her sexually-intense relationship with Halit, of Bulgarian-Turkish origins, one puncuated by the virus:

“I have two names , you told me the first night, one given at birth, one by the government.
...
I’m a mix. I moved countries. My English teacher was Scottish. I’ve actually been here ten years. I’m sorry– I didn’t ask your name.
It’s Edith. Edith.
That’s nice.
You introduced yourself, formally, succinctly gave the reasons for dual citizenship, your family’s expulsion during childhood. The explanation seemed rote, as if it had been given many times. I’m called after my grandfather.
What’s your other name– the Christian one?
Konstadin Konstadinov. He’s the one who is officially here on the documents.”

Overall, a powerful story, psychologically intense and with crystalline prose. Two of Hall's previous novels have been Booker longlisted, and this feels an early contender for the 2022 Prize.

If I had a small reservation it is that for a Covid-inspired novel, it is based on a much more severe version of Covid, which felt unnecessary.

Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC

Burntcoat is more sensual than Sarah Hall's How to Paint a Dead Man, more confronting than Wolf Border and is scorchingly good. The virus circulating is worse that anything COVID could offer and Edith's artist's studio Burntcoat becomes her refuge from the spreading contagion and resulting lawlessness. The scenes between lovers Edith and Halit and the impact of the virus are raw, physical and brutal. A testament to the exquisite quality of the writing is that I could not look away for a moment and I'm sure Burntcoat will appear on 2021 prize lists.