Howard Hordinary is convinced that he's the bastard grandchild of Harry Houdini. An unemployed executioner with a fetish for electric chairs, Howard is tormented by multiple perversities and obsessed with schemes to restore his status as executioner and as Houdini's legitimate heir. Cycling back and forth between Hordinary's paranoid present and Houdini's fantastical past -- teeming with freaks, carnies, scientists, con men, lunatics, and Houdini's own obsessions -- "Electric Flesh" is a sizzling blend of fact and fiction, penned by an exciting new voice in American fiction.