Electric flesh

the long version

"Howard Hordinary - convinced he is the bastard grandchild of a rumored liaison between Houdini and Charmain London (Jack London's wife) - schemes to restore his status (as electrocutioner, as Houdini grandchild), while Houdini himself travels a world populated by freaks, carnies, scientists, con men, and lunatics, in pursuit of *SZUSZU*, the enigmatic "Electric Girl," with whom he shared billing early in his career. Combining the paranoid historical sweep of Pynchon and Vollman, and the linguistic experiments of Ben Marcus, Shelley Jackson, and Matthew Derby, Electric Flesh runs an alternating current of language through the body of America."--Jacket.