Sarah Hall’s Novel Burntcoat

This review offers a critical evaluation of Sarah Hall’s novel Burntcoat (2021), which recounts the fragmented recollections of a sculptor, Edith Harkness, as she approaches death during a pandemic. Hall employs the pandemic not as a site for social or political critique, but as a backdrop for exploring the entanglements of memory, loss, embodiment, and art. At the heart of the novel lies Edith’s belief that transformation, whether emotional, physical, or artistic, inevitably leaves residue and damage. This conviction is mirrored in her sculptural method of “shou sugi ban”, a Japanese technique of burning wood to preserve it, which serves as both a metaphor and a structural principle in the novel. While some readers may find the novel’s nonlinearity, minimal engagement with social contexts, and intense focus on interiority to be limiting, its achievement lies in Hall’s sculpting of a narrative that is as sensually textured and temporally layered as Edith’s final artistic act.