Y’all know I love me some Sarah Hall (see my writeups of Daughters of the North, The Electric Michelangelo, The Wolf Border, and her short story collection, Madame Zero). 2021’s Burntcoat is no exception for me.
This book is likely to be a bit divisive: it is sexually graphic, describes some forms of emotional abuse, includes a few somewhat grisly moments, refers quite often to an undefined you (an authorial choice that may drive some away) and, perhaps most of all, is clearly a meditation on the pandemic, to which some may cry, Too soon! Too soon!
We are going to be flooded with plagueArt over the next decade–it’s already happening over on HBO with The Last of Us (I discount their adaptation of Station Eleven, as it was well in the works pre-2020–anxiety about the plague far predates the pandemic).
Burntcoat is a story about love and art: the protagonist is a large-installation sculptor living (like many of Hall’s characters) in the English/Scottish borderlands. Her artistic sensibilities are her own, but are also deeply entwined in a complicated relationship with her mother. There is a love affair, the plague (far worse than the COVID pandemic) hits, and things go from there.
Often, geography works as an additional character in Hall’s writing. Here, there is less of that, although the title refers to the massive studio that is the setting of much of what happens. Hall’s prose remains taut throughout, with a directness that is often striking.
The book is incendiary, insightful, and powerful. As long as the subject matter doesn’t shut you down, very highly recommended.