Burntcoat
A Novel
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE NOMINEE
"An extraordinary work that will stand as blazing witness to the age that bore it.” -- Sarah Perry
A "masterpiece" (Daisy Johnson) of mortality, passion, and human connection, set against the backdrop of a deadly global virus—from the Booker–nominated writer
You were the last one here, before I closed the door of Burntcoat. Before we all closed our doors . . .
In an unnamed British city, the virus is spreading, and like everyone else, the celebrated sculptor Edith Harkness retreats inside. She isolates herself in her immense studio, Burntcoat, with Halit, the lover she barely knows. As life outside changes irreparably, inside Burntcoat, Edith and Halit find themselves changed as well: by the histories and responsibilities each carries and bears, by the fears and dangers of the world outside, and by the progressions of their new relationship. And Burntcoat will be transformed, too, into a new and feverish world, a place in which Edith comes to an understanding of how we survive the impossible—and what is left after we have.
A sharp and stunning novel of art and ambition, mortality and connection, Burntcoat is a major work from “one of our most influential short story writers” (The Guardian). It is an intimate and vital examination of how and why we create—make art, form relationships, build a life—and an urgent exploration of an unprecedented crisis, the repercussions of which are still years in the learning.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Edith, the protagonist of Sarah Hall’s gorgeous and devastating novel, is an artist who makes grand, hulking sculptures and lives in a cavernous industrial building on the outskirts of an unnamed city in the UK. Hall’s fascinating heroine is no stranger to hardship and tragedy—she’s grieving the death of her mother, an eccentric writer who struggled with the effects of a brain injury throughout her life, and she still bears the scars of an abusive affair she carried on while in art school. Memories of those relationships get stirred up as a devastating pandemic causes the whole country to lock down and Edith hunkers down with her new lover, Halit. Gorgeously written, Burntcoat is a beautiful fever dream about life and death. Writes Hall: “All we had was love, its useless currency, its powerful denial.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hall (Sudden Traveller) delivers a powerful story of art and love set during a global pandemic. Edith Harkness, 59, is a famous and reclusive artist living in a massive industrial studio, Burntcoat, in an unnamed town in the North of England. She is coming to terms with the resurgence of the "novavirus," which is like Covid-19 but worse. Several years earlier, it killed her lover, Halit, and a million others in England. Edith knows she is dying but spends her time finishing a final commission, a national memorial for the dead that she feels "cannot possibly comfort." Edith grew up alone with her mother, Naomi, a famous writer who had to relearn how to speak and care for herself after an aneurysm. Edith thrived in her solitude as a child but when she went to art school, she faced the misogyny of teachers and was physically abused by a boyfriend. As her mother tells her, "Those who tell stories survive." In a shifting timeline, Hall works back to just before the pandemic when Edith meets Halit. As England goes into lockdown, the couple finds bliss at Burntcoat, but soon are both ill, and she has to care for him as the hospitals are full. Hall brings perfect harmony to the sweeping themes, such as a pandemic's impact on culture and the difficulties faced by a woman in the art world, and the prose, rich in description, is never overdone. This will serve as a benchmark for pandemic fiction.
