Point of View

The Electric Michelangelo is narrated anonymously in the third person, past tense. The author inserts herself into the text and never suggests any source of information for the story she tells. The novel focuses on Cyril (Cy) Parks, whose professional moniker is "The Electric Michelangelo," and moves back and forth between describing his external actions and words and the internal workings of his mind. Other characters are developed almost exclusively through the protagonist's eyes.

Setting

The Electric Michelangelo begins and ends in Morecambe, England, a resort town on the Irish Sea approximately even with the border between northern and southern Ireland. The story begins just before the outbreak of World War I and Morecambe is portrayed as a popular and prosperous vacation spot that promotes it healthy "soft air" among the northern working classes. In 1933, the protagonist, freed of family and employer, obtains false papers and...