The Electric Michelangelo

This novel is breathtaking. I found the writing to be exciting with just the right amount of embellishment and it has a beautiful flow. The subject matter is painstakingly researched and the settings are wonderfully textured. The plot is dark, complex, and fascinating. When I found out it was only the author's second novel, I was amazed. This is a masterfully crafted novel for someone so young. This is easily one of the most intriguing books I have read in over a year. I highly recommend this book for anyone who appreciates beautiful use of language.

I couldn't resist this 2005 novel when I heard it was about a tattoo artist. The fact that it was writen by Sara Hall, a Brit born in 1974 and a Booker Prize finalist with a fresh new voice in literature, made it even more appealing. From the very beginning I was captivated. Ms. Hall paints pictures with words and stirs emotions. And most of the emotions she stirs are disturbing and sometimes bordering on the grotesque. The story is compelling too, beginning in the seaside town of Morecambe, England, where working class consumptives whose lungs were destroyed by the mills and the coal mines, often took their one-week vacation in the quest for good clean sea air. Indeed, Ms. Hall was raised a few towns away and her descriptions of a widow hotelkeeper and her young son Cy the early part of the 20th Century introduced me to a time and a place that I will never forget. I will also never forget the main character, Cy, who grows up in the town where he apprentices to a foul-mouthed hard-drinking tattoo artist with a garrulous nature and larger-than-life persona. Later, our hero travels to America, where he sets up tattooing in Coney Island. It is the 1930s now, and Coney Island is in its heyday. Even though it was across the ocean from Cy's native Morecambe, it was a similar seaside resort catering to the appetites of a working class population looking for the outrageous and bizarre as a break from their own lives of struggle during the depression. Here, Cy meets Grace who does a horse act and even manages to sneak the horse into her Brooklyn apartment. She's a refugee from war-torn Europe, her background is a mystery and she, too, is larger than life. She wants an outrageous total body tattoo, and this act, with all its needles and inks and pain, is described in exquisite detail as an intimate connection between these two potential lovers. How it all plays out is not what I expected. There's an act of violence. There's an act of revenge. And then there are the years that pass. Eventually, I was left with a feeling of discomfort as well as completion. And I was also left with the feeling that Sara Hall is an extremely talented writer and that we will hear a lot more about her in years to come. Naturally, The Electric Michelangelo is not for everyone. But if you like a novel with a fine writing style, in-depth complex characters and a sense of looking at weird and offbeat side of history, you'll love this book.

This is without a doubt one of the finest novels I have ever read. The writing is pure heaven, the metaphors and similes are creative divinity--where does she get them? She is so highly gifted and so young that she can look forward to a wonderful career and you can be sure that I will follow her progress. Yes the novel can be heavy going at times but the beauty of her story and her talent as a writer just kept me wanting more and I earmarked so many passages because they were the finest, among the best poetry that I have ever read, her imagination and facility with language is stunning, not to mention the level of research that she did. A wonderful and rare performance--Bravo!

Electric Michelangelo by Sarah Hall is masterfully written. There are several aspects of the book that I would like to point out. First, in some ways one of the strenghts to this novel is minimal number of characters, minimal number of cities, and minimal number of intereactions. There are four main characters; Cy, this mother Reeda, his mentor Eliot Riley, and the woman he falls in love with, Grace. The action takes place in two cities; Morecambe England and Coney Island, NYC. Significant dialogue happens in two taverns; the Dog and Pheasant in Morecambe and the Varga on Coney Island. Cyril Parks is loved and protected by a wise mother, Reeda, who runs a boarding house by the sea for TB patients and performs abortions late at night for local girls in trouble. Her emotional stability gives Cy a bedrock of natural compassion and internal resources. She dies of breast cancer and Cy decides to become apprentice to the alcholic Eliot Riley, an angry bitter drunkard who introduces Cy to the profession of tatoo artist. After the death of Eliot, Cy migrates to Coney Island and makes a living on the boardwalk and socializing at the Varga, the local diner for circus and carnival folks. He meets a young angry intelligent beautiful Russian Jewish bareback rider and her horse, Maximus. She is agnostic, skeptical, and obviously has seen much pain and disappointment in her life, which she keeps to herself. Cy loves Grace but her personality is so much stronger than his, that his courtship must be carefully plotted. I will not say more about the straight forward story line since I don't want to ruin the reading experience of others, but the point here is that Hall uses a very minimal approach so as to better explore the few characters and situations she introduces. Second, Hall engages in skillful social commentary through the interactions of her characters, reminding me of the masterful job that VIctor Hugo does in Les Miserables. Social class and mileau commentary is best revealed by the manner in which the characters navigate to survive. Social commentary has more power through empathy than via lectures. This is true of Les Miserables as well as The Electric Michelangelo. Third, Hall engages in insightful analysis of the art of the tatoo and the impulses that drive human beings to mark their bodies. Some people mark their bodies to show experiences they have survived, such as military service or service in a particular part of the world. Others, mark their body to show committment. Others mark their bodies to signify loss. Some seek a tatoo so that the painful experience acts as an initiation rite, taking them apart and building them again with a symbol to show they have been rebuilt. Some men select terrible images to attempt to warn other men to stay away from them, that they are dangerous. Her commentary on the purposes of tatoo are skillfully interwoven throughout the work. Fourth, but you may ask "what is this book really about?" I would say

The Electric Michelangelo is at once a fascinating study of both character and career. Author Sarah Hall lovingly chronicles the life of tattoo artist Cyril Parks from childhood through later adult life. The novel is set on the norhthern coast of England and later moves to the bawdy atmosphere of Coney Island in Brooklyn, NY. That is where, in the late 1930's, Cyril Parks sets up his tattoo shop and begins his adventures in America. He eventually meets a woman named Grace, who is a circus performer and also becomes a client of Cyril's. While growing up in England, Cy was primarily influenced by his independent mother, Reeda, as well as his violently disturbed tattooing instructor, Eliot Riley. In the character of Grace, Cyril discovers qualities of both his mother and of Riley. This is a very powerful point of the novel. Sarah Hall writes some amazing prose, and she infuses humor throughout the story. At times philosophical and symbolic, The Electric Michelangelo has strong, very human characters, and it gives insight into the lives of its inhabitants through the unigue profession of tattooing. The book can be compared to some of the works by John Irving, where we find strong female characters, various points of irony, and offbeat humor surfacing along the way. This is one of the most original novels I have read this year. Although it is largely narrative, I found myself drawn into the book more and more as the story developed. There was a quiet, unassuming way in which the themes and messages of the book were conveyed. Through Cyril's tattoo artistry, we are shown a unique way of thinking, living, and dealing with the world, based on his art and profession. There is no fluff here. This is a meaty perspective on the human condition using subject matter that I have encountered in no other work. Given the chance, The Electric Michelangelo will lead the reader on a magical, rewarding journey.