Cy Parks is the Electric Michelangelo, an artist of extraordinary gifts whose medium happens to be the pliant, shifting canvas of the human body. Fleeing his mother's legacy — a consumptives' hotel in a fading English seaside resort — Cy reinvents himself in the incandescent honky-tonk of Coney Island in its heyday between the two world wars. Amid the carnival decadence of freak shows and roller coasters, enchanters and enigmas, scam artists and marks, Cy will find his muse: an enigmatic circus beauty who surrenders her body to his work, but whose soul tantalizingly eludes him.

"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. Agent, Emma Parry." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Hall's intelligence and ambition are thrilling to behold...she manages to combine the plummy sensuality of Marguerite Duras with the silken abstractions of Michael Ondaatje." BookForum

"A Man Booker finalist, Hall's sweeping novel explores timeless themes of loss and redemption with an ageless wisdom and grace." Booklist

"Sarah Hall..steps right out on that dazzling wire....It's amazing work." Carolyn See, The Washington Post

"The best moments are like this glimpse of the aurora borealis over Morecambe Bay....Like that mysterious light, Hall's novel is to be admired for its own slow grace." Susann Cokal, The New York Times

"The characters are flat, the story travels far without ever really going anywhere and the occasional attempts to philosophize about tattoos are generally fatuous. A lot of flash, and not much more." Kirkus Reviews

Sarah Hall, born in 1974, divides her time between the north of England and North Carolina. The Electric Michelangelo, her second novel, was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize.