Burntcoat

Edith Harkness, a celebrated sculptor, looks back over the key turns of her life as she prepares for death and completes a final artistic work. Her memories move between childhood, her relationship with her mother, and the development of her career as an artist.

A new relationship begins just as a violent pandemic spreads, forcing Edith and her lover into lockdown together inside Burntcoat, her vast studio-home. Their isolation, desire, fear, and the changing world outside become entwined with Edith’s reflections on art, family, and the body.

As the illness and its aftermath continue to shape Edith’s life years later, she uses memory and narration to make sense of survival, loss, and what remains after catastrophe. The book follows her attempt to turn private pain and public crisis into meaning, art, and remembrance.