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A review by elkiedee
Burntcoat by Sarah Hall
4.75
This is a short, intense novel. Edith looks back on her life, including growing up with her mother, who nearly died when Edith was a child but recovered enough to keep her daughter with her after her husband leaves. Edith eventually built her own life as an artist.
Central to her story is a love affair with Halit, a man who has settled here after being forced into exile. But the lovers haven't been together long at the start of a pandemic, and a society hit by crisis, fear and food shortages, and xenophobia.
I think this novel will be one of the best books I read this year, but it isn't always easy reading, with very explicit descriptions of sex and illness. Edith is looking back several decades later, and Sarah Hall in this story imagines a situation in which things got much, much worse, though eventually there was some return to a new normal. This may be a book that people should read, if they want to, in a time and place when they are ready for it.
(Review written 23 June 2022)
Central to her story is a love affair with Halit, a man who has settled here after being forced into exile. But the lovers haven't been together long at the start of a pandemic, and a society hit by crisis, fear and food shortages, and xenophobia.
I think this novel will be one of the best books I read this year, but it isn't always easy reading, with very explicit descriptions of sex and illness. Edith is looking back several decades later, and Sarah Hall in this story imagines a situation in which things got much, much worse, though eventually there was some return to a new normal. This may be a book that people should read, if they want to, in a time and place when they are ready for it.
(Review written 23 June 2022)