Chapters 46 - 50 Summary

Chapter 46: Jame Gumb sets up the VCR with the tape he always watches before harvesting a hide. It is black and white footage from the 1948 Miss Sacramento contest, featuring his mother, looped in with footage from a cable sex channel, featuring sprightly naked women sliding down a waterslide into the pool. Gumb is certain that one of the female swimmers is his mother. He heads down to his basement workroom. The California Department of Corrections taught him how to sew, and he regularly takes on paying projects. However, his sewing room also contains an armoire full of his Special Things. He also has a tailor's form cast in his exact proportions.

Gumb considers the difficult problem of sewing human skin without creating unsightly puckers. He has taught himself to tan a hide with cow brains, similarly to how the Native Americans...