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| The Tattoo Artist: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Jill Ciment
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $12.95
Buy New: $7.42
You Save: $5.53 (43%)
New (21) Used (12) from $6.94
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 312916
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.7
ISBN: 140007844X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781400078448
ASIN: 140007844X
Publication Date: October 17, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
In 1970, Sara Ehrenreich boards a small plane and returns to New York City with much fanfare; she will be featured in Life magazine. She has not left Ta'un'uu–the South Seas island upon which she and her husband, Philip, were marooned during a storm–in more than thirty years. Sara doesn’t know that man has landed on the moon. She has never seen a ballpoint pen. Her body is covered, head to toe, in tattoos.
Flashback: it’s 1918 and Sara, a shop girl and aspiring artist, meets Philip, a wealthy member of the avant-garde elite. The two fall in love, marry, and collaborate to make art, surrounded by socialites and revolutionaries–until the Depression cripples not just Sara and Philip, but most of their patrons. When Philip is offered a job gathering masks from the South Seas, they jump at a chance to escape America’s sorrows, traveling to Ta’un’uu for what they think will be a week’s stay.
The rest is history–a history Sara records on her skin through the traditional tattoos that become her masterpiece and provide an accounting of her days. Narrated in vivid and starkly moving prose, The Tattoo Artist reminds us of the unforeseeable forces that shape each human life.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Perfect for Book Groups: moving and thought-provoking September 12, 2005
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
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.
Like it was written on me with a needle January 27, 2006
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
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.
Mesmerizing novel July 6, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Exquisite writing that reminded me of Fugitive Pieces. I wish I could have read it in one sitting because it is consuming and transporting. As other reviewers mentioned, Ciment presents a unique vision in this novel. Not so much an exploration of the themes of art, home, cultural dislocation, but a dream of them. Hard to imagine being unmoved.
Bravo! March 26, 2006
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I have never read any of Jill Ciment's other books, but I plan to now.
I can vividly picture Sara and Phillip's tattoo's in my mind's eye. I can imagine the island they lived on and the people Sara lived amoungst.
I was more entralled by Sara's story once her and Phillip got to their destination, though her descriptions of her "union girl" and starving artist days were wonderful too.
 Images flew to my mind April 11, 2006
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
What is home? What is culture? How adaptable are we - at what point can we no longer adapt? What is beauty and what is art - imagine a beach full of living drawings, standing side by side in welcome.
I love how the cover of this book is sparse as opposed to the story which filled my mind with amazing images - images that moved and a still life of moments to be remembered,pain, sorrow, joy and tenderness.
As other reviewers have mentioned, this is a book that will stay with the reader for a long time.
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