title: The Tattoo Artist: A Novel
author:  Jill Ciment 
description: Ciment's notable new novel (after <i>Teeth of a Dog</i>) 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 <i>Life</i> 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. <i>(Aug.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Full Page Image](../images/00002.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Sugar Pie
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright © 2020 by Loni Ree
  
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
  any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and
  retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the
  use of brief quotations in a book review.
  
  
  Please respect the author and do not participate in or encourage piracy of
  copyrighted materials that would violate the author’s rights.
  
  
  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events,
  locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or
  used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
  dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
  
  
  Cover Design By: [Bookin It Designs](https://www.bookinitdesigns.com/)
  
  
  Edited By: [Kendra's Editing and Book Services](http://www.kendragaither.com/