The Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall

The Electric Michelangelo a Book by Sarah Hall

Opening on the windswept front of Morecambe Bay, on the remote north-west coast of England, The Electric Michelangelo is a novel of love, loss and the art of tattooing. In the uniquely sensuous and lyrical prose that has already become her trademark, Sarah Hall's remarkable new novel tells the story of Cy Parks, from his childhood years spent in a seaside guest house for consumptives with his mother, Reeda, to his apprenticeship as a tattoo-artist with Eliot Riley - a scraper with a reputation as a Bolshevik and a drinker to boot. His skills acquired and a thirst for experience burning within him, Cy departs for America and the riotous world of the Coney Island boardwalk, where he sets up his own business as 'The Electric Michelangelo'. In this carnival environment of roller-coasters and freak-shows, while the crest of the Edwardian amusement industry wave is breaking, Cy becomes enamoured with Grace, a mysterious East European immigrant and circus performer who commissions him to cover her body entirely with tattooed eyes.Hugely atmospheric, exotic, and familiar, The Electric Michelangelo is a love story and an exquisitely rendered portrait of seaside resorts on opposite sides of the Atlantic by one of the most uniquely talented novelists of her generation.

Editor Review

From Publishers Weekly

Hall's mellifluous coming-of-age story about an apprentice tattoo artist from the north coast of England who reinvents himself in Coney Island, N.Y., is picaresque in its sweep and lovely in its lush description. This 2004 Booker Prize finalist, Hall's second novel (after Haweswater) but first U.S. release, follows Cyril Parks from his youth in the 1910s, as he grows up the only son of the widowed proprietor of the Bayview Hotel in Morecambe, through his hard-won apprenticeship to the seedy rogue Eliot Riley, under whose exacting tutelage he becomes a skilled tattoo artist. From his benevolent mother, Reeda Parks, who puts up consumptives at her hotel, he learns not to be disgusted by the spectacle of human misery. (Reeda also performs secret abortions and campaigns for women's suffrage.) Upon Reeda and Riley's deaths, Cy takes off for America and plies his trade among the vibrant array of freak shows at Coney Island. By 1940, he meets a local Russian chess champion, Grace, and during the course of their love affair he inscribes 109 eye tattoos all over her body. Hall's writing is pure joy, especially when describing the childhood seaside shenanigans of Cy and his boy pals.

From Booklist

Tracing the arc of Cyril Parks' life from a young boy growing up in a ramshackle hotel for consumptives run by his widowed mother in the English seaside town of Morecambe through his emigration to America and back again, Hall paints a lush and sumptuous portrait of a sensitive, solitary man who ekes out an unlikely living as a tattoo artist. As a teenager, Parks learned his trade from Eliot Riley, an abusive loner who virtually kidnapped Parks to be his apprentice. After the deaths of both his mother and Riley, Parks escapes England and the approaching World War, sailing to America where he establishes himself in the bacchanalian world of Coney Island's boardwalk as "The Electric Michelangelo." When an enigmatic young woman hires him for a most bizarre commission, Parks finds himself caught within a maelstrom of emotions and desires unlike any he has ever known. A Man Booker finalist, Hall's sweeping novel explores timeless themes of loss and redemption with an ageless wisdom and grace. Carol Haggas

“Her gorgeously embellished prose compels the narrative, along with the beguiling vignettes she conjures up . . . the effect is intoxicating.” (Financial Times)

‘Sarah Hall’s second novel, is richly descriptive, an evocative exploration of misfits and exiles searching for a home.’ (The Lady)(The Lady)

“A vivid depiction of changing seaside culture.... A smart study of a subtle but desreputable art.” (The Independent)

‘The Electric Michelangelo is a work of unusual imaginative power and range.’ (The Guardian)

About Author

Sarah Hall was born in Cumbria in 1974. She is the prize-winning author of five novels - Haweswater, The Electric Michelangelo, The Carhullan Army and How to Paint a Dead Man and The Wolf Border - as well as The Beautiful Indifference, a collection of short stories. The first story in the collection, 'Butchers Perfume', was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award, a prize she won in 2013 with 'Mrs Fox'. --This text refers to the paperback edition..