Burntcoat

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Nobody writes like Sarah Hall, and here her lucid, vital, extraordinary style is matched perfectly to its subject – it's an extraordinary work that will stand as a blazing witness to the age that bore it.'

Just as with other dystopian novels I’ve read, this one got under my skin and the realism left a huge mark on me. This could really happen. We now live in a contemporary, modern world where pandemics happen, and our lives are impacted in multiple ways, including our innermost thoughts and feelings. Burntcoat is extremely well-written and an intense reading experience I won’t forget. It’s bleak and dark, frightening and and emotional; all I expect from the genre and then some. I had a sense of form if not plot, and I went in hoping it was going to be the petite powerful novel – those are my favourites to read. I also had the sense it was going to somehow catch what was going on – at least the fear and uncertainty – and that there would be a relationship and a meeting of cultures.Hall puts this duel between the wild and 'civilised' self to the test. And oh what a test, Pandemic anyone. So what happens to all our self agonising when we come up against a virus that does not give a hoot what our name is or what we want to do. First things first, we fight to survive, it might be that we have to fight this fight all alone and yes die alone like so many did and continue to do because of Covid19. What do we cling to? What helps us make it through? Now shortlisted for the US National Book Critics Circle award (I suspect the first of a number of award listings to come). It was an incredible experience – a good disturbance in the heart. I’m haunted, but not traumatically, and a few years later wrote a short story about it all called Sudden Traveller. It is the only story I cannot read out in public.

Article in The Guardian on trauma and the unexpected tonic of extreme reading: www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle Overall , it’s a disturbing book in many ways and leaves me feeling very unsettled which is probably the intention. I’m sure other readers will love this book but it’s one I only like parts of.

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Sarah Hall (born 1974) [1] is an English novelist and short story writer. [2] Her critically acclaimed second novel, The Electric Michelangelo, was nominated for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. She lives in Cumbria. Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? The Faber Interview. Sarah Hall speaks to Alex Clark about the inspiration behind her novel, Burntcoat, and the themes of her writing: www.faber.co.uk/journal Her work is published throughout the world and has been translated into more than fifteen languages. She has performed at numerous literary festivals in the UK and around the world and has been a participant of British Council conferences and seminars abroad, most recently discussing new British Nature Writing in Germany with Robert MacFarlane.