The Electric Michelangelo
By (Author) Sarah Hall
Faber & Faber
Faber & Faber
23rd March 2016
3rd March 2016
Main
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary
823.92
Paperback
352
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 20mm
280g
On the windswept front of Morecambe Bay, Cy Parks spends his childhood years first in a guest house for consumptives run by his mother and then as apprentice to alcoholic tattoo-artist Eliot Riley. Thirsty for new experiences, he departs for America and finds himself in 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, Cy becomes enamoured with Grace, a mysterious immigrant and circus performer who commissions him to cover her entire body in 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.
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'.