A review by micaelabrody
Burntcoat by Sarah Hall

challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

a while ago there was a tumblr post i read saying:
At my core I need to shut the hell up and read a short novel that changes me forever (allsadnshit)


i can now share that burntcoat is one of those novels.

like many i think i was skeptical of "the covid novel" but i think this one pulled it off. by maintaining a laser focus on one person, it didn't try to really capture the scale and scope of a pandemic, just the personal effects. i did feel that halit was underdeveloped considering how much of a presence he was, so he felt more like a symbol of "body of another" more than a person in his own right. this could have been intentional but considering the careful thought put into the body of edith and her mother, it felt a little flat.

many reviews on here at first glance seem to focus on the "bodily fluids." yes, there were a lot of bodily fluids i guess - though at 3/4 of the way through i did specifically note that i didn't feel like it was more than usual for an adult contemporary that focused on a sexual relationship. once the focus shifted to the sickness ("nova") it increased, but it felt appropriate. i constantly reference the article that talked about characters having bodily functions in the handmaid's tale - this book really follows up on that; it is unflinching in the face of shit and semen and piss. without that, it would have fallen so flat. the entire focus is on the body. even her giant witch sculpture is controversial because of its aggressive use of breasts and vagina. why write a book about a deadly illness - two, if you count her mom - and avoid the inherent grossness of still being alive??

(similarly - i saw a review complaining it was in 2nd person. IT IS NOT IN 2ND PERSON. it is in 1st person!! she is addressing a character as "you"! this isn't uncommon! they're totally different!!! I do not think it means what you think it means.gif)

this was especially effective because the novel really felt like a gothic horror story, where the sickness was the ghost in the haunted house. (her mommy issues, which i personally had been hoping to avoid but were objectively done well, were another haunting, and the aforementioned narrow focus on edith's experience and her home really drove home the eeriness of isolation.) the pacing didn't quite match up as it felt a little end-heavy, and the constant double line breaks really hindered developing a rhythm in the otherwise gorgeous prose, but they didn't have a significant impact in the overall vibe and atmosphere, especially once the plot really kicked into high gear around page 100.

i think this book is understandably not for everyone and at times it was tough to read - at a personal level, i've read a lot of Mother or Grandmother stuff recently and i'm in desperate need of a reprieve - but it worked as a tense and unsettling elegy. yes, a short & quick book, a slice of devastation. 
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