- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (Oct 17 2006)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 140007844X
- ISBN-13: 978-1400078448
- Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 1.5 x 21.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 181 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #904,295 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Ciment's notable new novel (after Teeth of a Dog) narrates the vanguard life of a New York surrealist artist whose 30 years among South Pacific natives teaches her the sacred art of tattooing. Born at the turn of the century to Jewish immigrants, freethinking Sara escapes her seamstress job via Philip Ehrenreich, a banker's son turned Marxist revolutionary who moves her into his Greenwich Village flat and introduces her to the New York art scene. They make a fabulous avant-garde couple until the New York art world goes bust in the run-up to WWII, and they take off for the South Seas in search of native art. Marooned on the island of Tu'un'uu, the castaways find their love tested when the natives forcibly tattoo their faces. Eventually, with no hope of escape, tattooing each other with the gorgeous dyes becomes a mournful expression of love and loss. After Philip's untimely death, Sara becomes an elder craftsman of the religious art, rendering herself "a piece of living tapestry." Three decades later Sara returns to New York after a roving Life magazine reporter discovers her on the island and photographs her, revealing her curious life's work to the world. Though historically fantastic, Ciment's latest is poignant and anthropologically intriguing. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Ciment, a fine memoirist and novelist, presents a provocative story of art and trespass. Sara, a plucky Lower East Side shopgirl, gets involved with wealthy would-be artist Philip and proves to be a more talented painter than he. This precipitates an erotically charged power struggle interrupted by the devastation of the Depression. ?Abruptly destitute, they jump at the chance to travel to the South Pacific to collect island art, but disaster awaits. Improvising astutely on the spectacular tattooing culture of the Marquesas Islands, Ciment invents a fictional body-art-focused culture, then orchestrates bitterly ironic catastrophes that maroon Sara on the island of Ta'un'uu and force her to take up the needle in lieu of the brush and create not on canvas but on her own skin. By the time a Life reporter tracks her down 30 years later and brings her back to a nearly unrecognizable New York, she, too, has changed beyond all imagining. Similar to novelist Samantha Gillison, Ciment covers cross-cultural terrain, creating a remarkably smart and edgy tale laced with sharp insights into time and change, the nature of the self and the significance of art, folly and survival. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.2 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Like it was written on me with a needle, Jan 27 2006
By M. "M." - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Tattoo Artist: A Novel (Hardcover)
It's been several months since I read this book, and I still can't forget it. One of my favorite books of last year, and all time. This not a typical novel written in the typical authorial voice generated by writer workshops and popular weekly magazines. This story about art, love, and tattoos explores the mysteries inherent in each, without falling into pat themes or regurgitated meaning. Not a retelling of myth, it works on a mythological level and I was transformed by it, as if I had not just read about tattoos but gotten one. And in a way I have, that's how strongly I feel about this book, it's not just something I read, it's something I experienced.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect for Book Groups: moving and thought-provoking, Sep 12 2005
By Meg Cox "journalist/author/quilter" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Tattoo Artist: A Novel (Hardcover)
Jill Ciment's new novel "The Tattoo Artist" is deceptively slender. Although it is only 207 pages long, it is stuffed with events, history, fascinating characters and important ideas. For these reasons, book groups will have a great time talking about this novel, especially the ending.As someone who reads novels almost exclusively and who has read almost all of Ciment's work, I think she makes a leap with this book that is similar to the one made by novelist Andrea Barrett in her marvelous book "Ship Fever," which won the National Book Award. Ciment has pushed herself to a whole new level as a writer here. As usual, her prose is spare and taut, and that works very effectively in the service of her tale about a "primitive" society. I couldn't put this book down, and I can't stop thinking about it.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
tattoos, artists, who could ask for more?, July 20 2007
By M. Sokoloff "investigative explorer" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Tattoo Artist: A Novel (Paperback)
well, I'm an artist and I have tattoos so I was drawn to this book....BUT, believe me, it's so much more than that. Anyone who loves Andrea Barrett's writing or "The Life of Pi" will love this book. Ciment is a visual poet with the ability to create a believable world from unbelievable circumstances; her writing has the clarity of waking up very suddenly from a dream in the middle of the night. I absolutely loved this book...another one for my personal library.
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