Powerful and affecting while you read it, Burntcoat has really stayed with me since I finished it. As other reviewers have said, it's one of the most powerful responses to and accounts of the pandemic that has appeared so far, but it also so much more. There is really powerful writing here about grief, art, love and desire and as good an account of a difficult relationship between mother and daughter as you will read anywhere. There are similarities with Rachel Cusk's very good Second Place but the writing is somehow fiercer and more visceral (and with a more central, and convincing, artist figure). Lines like "You want to test my mettle, You want me to confront it with no defence" both summarise the book and challenge the reader. A fantastic novel.

There is a lot going on in this relatively slender novel. It is narrated by Edith Harkness, a sculptor, and explores a number of relationships which have been important to the narrator, including with her mother Naomi, a novelist who has suffered a brain haemorrhage, her abusive ex-boyfriend Ali, and her lover Halit.

This final relationship unfolds against the backdrop of a re-imagined global pandemic - Hall's virus, the novavirus or AG3, is more virulent than Covid-19, but there are clear echoes of our pandemic, and this is probably the aspect of the novel I found most compelling. The government imposes "social tracking", households are "locked in" and only "cornerstone workers" are allowed out at night. There is something about the uncanniness of reading these variations on terms that have become so familiar to us that allows us to step back and examine what has happened to us - as a nation and a species - in ways that other literary responses to the pandemic have not yet managed. The increased deadliness of Hall's pandemic leads to a higher death toll, an even more overwhelmed government and health service, and frightening outbursts of violence and looting, leaving us pondering what might have become of us under different circumstances. It all feels eerily plausible.

There is also a powerful sense of setting throughout the novel, particular the narrator's eponymous home and workshop, a reclaimed warehouse. The outside world is presented much more sketchily - occasional references to phones or the internet anchor the novel in the present day, but the overall atmosphere is quite dreamlike, adding to its power.

Hall writes beautifully, and Edith's relationships with Naomi and Halit are drawn with great tenderness. There is also some interesting discussion of the intersection between gender and creativity: both Edith and Naomi produce art which is seen as transgressive and doesn't fully achieve the recognition it deserves until later on. (I particularly enjoyed one character's comment on women's writing often labelled as "Gothic [...] like cheap varnish", while men get to be "existentialists"). I wasn't sure how well this exploration of creativity tied into the novel's response to the pandemic, but there is perhaps an implicit acknowledgement of the challenge of offering any fully coherent response towards the end of the novel when Edith reflects that her art "cannot possibly comfort, or reparate".

Overall, I admired this novel greatly but was slightly less engaged by some sections. However, it is well worth reading as a powerful and original response to the pandemic.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sharing an uncorrected proof with me to review.

A beautifully written story,that talks of love and loss,with some relationships that are just that bit special.
It near brought me to tears on several occasions.

'Burncoat' is an intense novel about a Covid like pandemic, but worse. Luckily though, it's far more than that. It's also a beautiful and often feral story about a once in a lifetime love, a mother-daughter relationship that is different from the usual and a book about art, creation and craftsmanship. Hall's writing touches all your senses and in particular is very visual, especially when it comes to her descriptions of love, art and nature. Sarah Hall is a superb writer and this was just so good! Another 5 star novel!
Thank you Faber & Faber and Netgalley for the ARC.

This is, I think, the most intense and powerful response to Covid and the extraordinary experience we've all been through in the last sixteenth months that I've read. Hall has written an emotionally-charged novel that is tribute, extended nightmare, love story and - somehow - manages to claw back some kind of human dignity and strength in the face of the inevitability of death.

I'm deliberately keeping this review short because I think each reader deserves to experience the trajectory of the story for themselves. But I'd say this is fiction that is almost masquerading as autofiction and has something of the sensitive thoughtfulness of a [author:Deborah Levy|147246] or [author:Rachel Cusk|46051] while at the same time pondering the intersection of art (the narrator is a sculptor) with individual and public crisis. All I'd say is... read it.