The electric Michelangelo (2004)

An apprenticeship in Morecambe leads tattoo artist Cy Parks to a business on Coney Island. Hall makes the body a demanding working surface and the seaside entertainment trade a world of skill, commerce and reinvention. The prose is rich and sometimes earthy, with illness, sexual material and violence alongside its exuberance. Try it for an artisan whose imagination matters without making the customer, the apprentice or the bill disappear.