7 Tattoos: A Memoir in the Flesh

Peter Trachtenberg's Seven Tattoos: A Memoir in the Flesh is much more than the memories of an eloquent writer. It's wild anthropology, eclectic theology, literary observation, and a treatise on the uses of body modification and tattooing. Even Trachtenberg's most harrowing and absurd experiences become universal through his illuminating prose.

As a Jew drawn to the ritual of Catholicism, plagued by its guilt and craving its absolution, he gets a tattoo of the wound of Christ. An unfilial son and regretful lover, he marks himself with the Archangel Michael, who drove Adam and Eve from Paradise. "Most tattoos are signifiers of the past, commemorating events that have already transpired. That's how I see most of mine," Trachtenberg explains. "But tattoos may also act upon the future, protect the body from impending danger or consecrate it for some arduous task ahead."

Each chapter in Seven Tattoos explores the theme evoked by the corresponding tattoo: death, sacrilege, primitivism, rebellion, atonement, sadomasochism, downfall. Each of Trachtenberg's seven tattoos is a totem, a print the world has left on him that he has chosen to display on his body. Like fresh ink, Seven Tattoos is striking, bold and indelible.