The Tattoo Artist

by Jill Ciment

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.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Book Club, Novels, Adult Fiction, Drama, New York

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 17, 2006

About the author

Jill Ciment was born in Montreal, Canada. She is the author of Small Claims, a collection of short stories and novellas; The Law of Falling Bodies, Teeth of the Dog, The Tattoo Artist, and Heroic Measures, novels; and Half a Life, a memoir. She has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts, a NEA Japan Fellowship Prize, two New York State Fellowships for the Arts, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Ciment is a professor at the University of Florida. She lives with her husband, Arnold Mesches, in Gainesville, Florida and Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dude, if I were some big-shot Hollywood-type chick, my people's ass would be on the phone this instant with Jill Ciment's people's ass securing the movie rights to this book. The Tattoo Artist would make such an awesome film! It's so intensely visual in this way that would be great to see shot with a huge budget and put on a big screen. Awesome face tattoos! Period settings! Jungle and beaches! Sex! Violence! Extreme weather! Arty stuff! And because it was short and did have very tight structure and good pacing, adaptation to screenplay would likely be cake.

The Tattoo Artist is one of those too rare high concepts that's followed through responsibly and executed with confidence. The premise is a sort of post-colonial Robinson Crusoe story, in which a Lower East Side Jewish garment-worker-cum-bohemian-artist is stranded on a tattooed tribe's Pacific island for thirty years, going native, only maybe not quite. It reminded me of Pippi in the South Seas in the best way; that was always my favorite of the Pippi books, because even though I knew as a kid that the other ones were funnier and more quintessentially Pippi-ish, I was just crazy for the descriptions of that island and the islanders (though when I became an older girl, the latter made me cringe). I really appreciate literature for grownups that isn't scared to be as imaginative as the best kids' books are. The Tattoo Artist has the originality and fearlessness of a children's book, but it's about grownup stuff.

I know you're not allowed to hold something like this against a book, but one thing I kept thinking while reading this is that it's too bad it wasn't written at least ten or fifteen years earlier. Tattooing has lost its tabooed shock status in our culture, and while the concept still worked, I couldn't help feeling that the fundamentally shocking image of an American woman with an entirely tattooed face and body has been diluted somewhat by the ubiquity of the things. Obviously I could still appreciate what this would mean to the characters when the book took place, but my own reaction to the idea didn't feel as extreme as I wanted it to, if that makes any sense.

The reason why this finally was a three-starrer instead of a four is due to my personal preference for the overly-long, sprawling novel, and the fact that when I finished this, I wished it had been one. This is the opposite of the backhanded compliment, a such-good-food-such-small-portions kind of complaint. The worlds described -- early twentieth-century Manhattan and the island -- and the ideas in the novel were so good that I wished there had been more time spent on them. The main character Sara is a working-class child of immigrants, and her partner Philip is a wealthy bohemian rabble-rouser whose lofty leftist ideals are called into question when the Depression decimates his fortune. Sara's politics are presented within the context of her time, and when she returns to New York at the end, there's some quick commentary on them. But I wanted more on the contrast between the economic systems and values of America and the island, and what it all meant in the world of the book.

I also wanted more of Sara and what was going on with her -- I could always guess why she made the decisions she did, so I could see why the author didn't feel the need to beat me over the head with too much explanation, but personally I would've liked more of that anyway. Like early on when Sara first says she's in no rush to leave the island, I could fill in the blanks on why, but it did feel a little rushed. Not rushed in the sense that I felt lost at sea, but more just that it seemed like an opportunity for more cool interesting stuff to get into, that wasn't fully exploited. This was obviously a conscious decision made by the author, and I hope some of you read this because I want to hear what you think. I feel like sometimes I have the opposite complaint -- that just bringing something up is enough, and that as a reader I can do the work myself -- but here I wanted more than I got. Like, when Sara's looking through old Life magazines and catching up on all she's missed since the thirties, and she's seeing the pictures of concentration camps for the first time. Now, I never thought I'd say this, since I've got this whole contrary rant about the Holocaust in fiction, but like, that's a pretty intense thing for a Jew who's been out of touch with western civilization to find out about later, and I wanted more here than just that thought, even though in theory I'd guess I'd prefer just the allusion.

The book did hold up on its own as a complete work, and probably many other readers would be satisfied to ponder on their own -- as I did -- questions about politics, art, and culture that the story raised. I was a little frustrated though, because I wanted them explored further, and I wanted a clearer idea of what the book's position was regarding these matters. Sara's on the island for thirty years, but the time felt too short. I would've been happier to stay stranded with her for much longer, which when I think about it, was maybe the point.

Anyway, whatever, blah blah blah blah. The book was good and I'd definitely read more by this author.

[lucky little cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many scenes in this novel are gloriously vivid. But I'm queasily skeptical about the novel's most basic premise: I have trouble believing an Oceanic tribal tattooist would use his art vengefully as extensive punishment. That seems like enormous western cultural freight to unload (and psychologically project) onto someone else's civilization.


It takes a westerner, tattoo artist Phil Berge, to recreate Disney's "Bone Dance" with 28 different tattoos. No details on how many different clients the project required.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

My fingers are a bit sensitive today hitting keys trying to find the right words for this unique story. I will be cautious, about my love for this book, I will recommend it, but I don't want to go over the top confessing my thoughts, I don't want it to be a let down for anyone else by "talking it up".

With that said, I would like to get my own copy of this book, so it can be buried with me. I want to lie under a beautiful tree on a beach or a mountain top and read it in the afterlife. Oh, I have to chuckle, but that sums it up . . . I think that will be a new shelf of mine on goodreads, books I want to be buried with, burned with, pushed overboard with, what have you.

Some readers will not like it, it begins with the not to be understood, arrogant, passionate, world of two avante-garde artistic personalities, Phillip and Sara. Clumbsily they climb over one another, trampling their love for one another with the search for exploration, creation and self expression. Which is why, their experiences on the island of Ta'un'uu, are so transformative. They travel to the island to find unique tribal masks for a collector. Once they set foot on the sandy beach, everything they know, feel, love is tested. They were scheduled to stay a week, but it will be over 30 years before Sara will return to NYC and a life that no longer exists.

After only a couple of days, their lack of knowledge about the island culture and an unfortunate event finds them drugged and forcibly marked with facial tattoos. Their identity and knowledge of the world is irrevocably changed. The journey of their life and love has a new definition, yet, slowly, sara picks up the bone needles and ink, putting tattoos on Phillip. Her art reaches a new level and her place in the island community changes. Eventually her own body becomes her surface for expression, and the brands she creates outline her life.

I wonder if we ALL walked the earth with our triumphs, tragedies, our love and our shame worn like an armor on the skin; if it would change our behavior. Would we be kinder, quieter, less restless, more thoughtful, more attentive to the every moment of living? There would be nothing to hide in the story of a life written on the flesh, an outward resume of meaning. In every detail there would be pain, touched with another human hand and given elegance with shape, color and exquisite skill.

I would have liked a little more from the author, and then I think, what more needed to be said? I was intrigued by the first pages, and hooked, shortly after until the last. Perhaps I will find that again in another book by Jill Ciment.

[Birgit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliantly told. The premise - the avant-garde descending on the "savages" for no other reason than their misguided, self-enamored quest for true ethnic art, only to be up for a momentous wake-up call - may seem a tad self-evident and tired, but what Jill Cement accomplishes here is beautiful. For me, who's never cared much for tattoos, it was a fabulous journey into the world of (self)expression, physical beauty, and skin-deep judgement. I look at heavily tattooed bodies somewhat differently now (maybe I've always looked at them).. isn't that what you're supposed to do?

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is only the second book of Jill Ciment's I've read. Whereas on the surface it shares little with Heroic Measures, there are undercurrents that give a picture of an author with a specific point of view regarding displacement. Tattoo Artist is more of a self examination Sara and Philip,members of avant guard artist groups following WWI, struggle through the Depression, and find themselves stranded on an island paradise in 1938 in an attempt to collect the unique death masks carved by Ta'au'aans, the "Michelangelos of South Seas tattooing." Sara is telling her story from the vantage of 1970, after thirty years spent with "her" tribe, finding a city in which television, walks on the moon, skyscrapers and all the "advancements" of the intervening 30 years has transformed the world as she knew it. She observes like Rip Van Winkle, questioning her place in either of the two worlds she's known. On the basis of these two books, I look forward to reading just about anything that Ms. Ciment writes.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walking through the library recently, I saw this book, totally judged it by it's cover and checked it out. I couldn't stop reading it until it was done, yet it didn't leave me emotionally attached to it either. I loved the story, it was unique and beautiful, and I swear there were times I could feel the pain of the tattoo needles. There were times I wanted to choke Phillip and moments I wanted to cry for Sara. It weaves beautiful artistic images in your mind as you read, and the only way I can describe this is... you don't just read this book, you experience it.

[Bonnie Brody · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Tattoo Artist is as unique a book as I've ever read. It is brilliant in its conception and completion. I loved both the story and the metaphors. It is a book that will have you in its grip for a long time.

Sara and Philip Ehrenreich meet in New York in the early 20th century. Both are jewish activists. However, Sara comes from poverty and Philip from money. They are both avant-garde in their beliefs and love the world of art, culture, and revolution. Philip wishes more than anything that he could create art but he lacks that real gift. Sara, however, has it, and she becomes a celebrity in her own right. They end up partnering but their relationship is very open and experimental from the beginning. All is well until the depression hits and Philip loses everything. They are backed by a wealthy patron who has been impressed by Philip's mask collection and they head to the South Seas to collect masks from the Ta'un'uuans.

Once they reach their destination, unbeknownst to them, they will remain on this island for thirty years. Their first impression of the island and its inhabitants is mind-blowing. All the islanders are tattooed and their first view of them is like watching a moving tapestry. At first, Sara assumes that the beauty of the island is the inspiration for all their tattoos. Gradually she realizes how wrong she is. Their tattoos, which cover their whole bodies, including their tongues and the soles of their feet, tell stories, narratives of lives lived and lives lost. Through a series of unexpected events, Sara finds herself tattooed all over as well.

The prologue to the book introduces us to Sara and her tattoos. She is responsible for all of their design except for the tattoos on her face. "My tattoos, like all the tattoos of my island, are a pictorial narrative, an illustrated personal history, though not necessarily a chronological one." Every inch of her body is covered with her story, illustrated by the tattoos she carries with her always.

This is a book to savor, to question, to appreciate in all its beauty. It is one of a kind and Ms. Ciment has created a masterpiece.

[Colton Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before 2025 started, I wanted to choose an author and read all their works in a year, and I am so glad I chose Jill Ciment. Her weird, offbeat works of fiction (and her memoir) have brought so much depth and texture to my life over the past five months, and reading all of her works in chronological order has highlighted the elements of each story that she carries from one to the next.

“The Tattoo Artist” has, like all of her works, several moments of greatness where I just have to stop reading and say, “Wow” (sometimes out loud). She has such a keen understanding of her characters and their flaws, quirks, and triumphs. The titular character in this novel is no different. We see her struggle, adapt, sacrifice, compromise, etc. so much over just 200 pages. It feels like I have seen all of Sara’s life, when in reality 30 years flies by in a matter of pages.

Ciment is such an underrated gem, and I can’t wait to continue the rest of her bibliography through 2025.

[Kerfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story is simple: rich young idealistic Jewish Marxist artists lose money in Great Depression; try to regain status by cashing in on "primitives"; become stranded in the wilderness; lose hope, comfort, life; find something that has no name. Try to go back. Can't.

In only 200 pages, Ciment manages to reveal a world and mind as vast as human nature. Art. Culture. Masks. Adornment. Civilization. Home. Creation and destruction. Leaving and returning. Vanity and assimilation. And of course the big ones: life and death. Belonging, meaning, becoming. It's all here.

Like the ever-changing tattoos that vibrate and continuously transform when the eyes try to focus and pin them down, these words will resonate in their own new context each time they are read.

[Sandra Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sara’s story has left me wanting to run away to New York, get a new tattoo and then travel to the South Seas. The imagery of this book was so beautiful, Ciment really transported me to another world and I was heartbroken to leave it when I finished the book. I really hope this is made into a movie soon!

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. I loved this. The story of an artist and her husband who, after gaining some success with her art, is stranded on an island in the south Pacific for 30 years. There the natives' tradition of tattoig becomes her only source of artistic expression. Very much to think about, and will make for a good discussion in our art group.

[Sylvia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so surprised by this book. It started out as a story of two people, artists, living a socialist life in New York but then pivots to an adventure story on a remote island and becomes a rich tapestry of ideas and experiences just like the tattoos that the island’s inhabitants cover their bodies with. Ciment is an excellent writer.

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sara Ehrenreich is returned to the modern world of the 1970s after being stranded on a South Pacific island for thirty years. She is tattooed on every part of her body. The tattoos all have special meaning as is the custom of the Ta’un’uuans she has lived among all these years. There is a special meaning to every image on her body.
This is an unusual story that took me a little while into it to captivate me. But once hooked I didn’t want to stop reading and it isn’t very long.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It kept me wondering. However, as another reviewer said, I think it would have been better reading it back when tattoos were rather taboo.

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason I rated this four stars instead of five is that I wished there were more of it.

Meet Sara, a Lower East Side shopgirl who falls in love with a wealthy, bohemian artist. The book chronicles their journey of being stranded on a remote South Pacific Island during the Great Depression and, after 30 years, being rescued. In Ta’un’uu, where they are stranded, the villagers use their entire bodies as canvases, with tattoos as their medium for telling life stories and expressing spirituality. It’s a fascinating look at what inspires people to mark their bodies, as well as an exposé of the preconceived notions modern day society has about things like face tattoos.

The first third of the book is all about Sara and Philip’s courtship and passion for art. It’s very detailed and really gives you a sense of who they are and where they came from. But compared to this, their time on the island and return home seem short-changed. I would’ve loved to know more about those three “lost” decades. During that time, monumental events like the Holocaust and the first man on the moon happened; it would’ve been really interesting to learn more about the contrast of life before and after the island.

Overall, a fabulous book that I couldn’t put down. Would also make a great movie. Pretty please cast Jennifer Lawrence as Sara. The end.

[Susan Emmet · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novella really reined me in. Taut, tight, intriguing, provocative.
Made me think a lot about colonial white guys stealing "primitive" art for their salons. And desperate people seeking refuge or meaning or connection to something larger than they are. And making your body a canvas for your life without being able to see much of what you've wrought until you find a mirror. Or learning to listen to the "Other" without judgment, with silence, with care.

Sara and Philip's tempestuous journey through their life together is arresting. Depression-era New York, political and artistic movements, competition between partners, desperately seeking patrons - this portion of the narrative is strong.
But I was most taken by Sara's "rescue" by Life magazine in 1970 or so, after 30 years of life on the tiny island of Ta'un'uu. The notion of rescue is most interesting. From where and what? To where and what? At what price? For what reason?
And in our time of so much radical experimentation in art (maybe most on the Deep Web?), does the tale of a woman who truly becomes her art exist in so-called "civilized" society? Or will her tattoos be relegated to only her personal story of life?

[Patricia Storms · Rating 2 out of 5]

A great premise for a story, and at times 'The Tattoo Artist' was quite engaging, but overall the story fell flat. I felt that the author didn't dig deep enough – one never truly gets to know/understand the main character Sara, or the people from the island where she lives. Also, at times Ms. Ciment would finish sections of the novel with these supposedly deep one sentence or so pronouncements, and quite frankly it got to be a bit irritating. I could feel the author's presence more than the character Sara, and that presence was the author whacking me on the head with a giant club, saying,"Look at how profound I am". Ugh.

[Iris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book because the concept is so intriguing but it didn't impress me the way I thought it would. Ciment seemed to brush over a lot of the important details that the reader would want to know - such as, the relationships that the main character made over the course of the 30 years on the island....this book left me with much to be desired. Not nearly enough detail.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting and sent me down a wormhole of looking up Polynesian tattooing. I'm not sure where I heard about this strange little book, but I'm glad I pulled it from my shelves.

I'm glad to have had the chance to think about art, expression, and ritual through the lens of this book.

[Lauren Tamraz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story about a shipwrecked artist who falls in with indigenous tattoo-ing tribe in the South Pacific during the 1930's (?)Seriously good read.

[Laila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never read anything like this, the story was wholly unique. It had a sort of haunting, macabre feel to it.

[Janet Elsbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely and intense and imaginative and rich.

[Elizabeth Roberts-Zibbel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose this book because I am quite tattooed myself. I enjoyed the islanders’ philosophies about tattooing, though what the book flap doesn’t tell you is that the facial tattoos she and Philip receive are in punishment, because their tent blew apart in a storm and a metal pole lodged in a hut in the village, attracting lightning and killing a family. There’s not much time to get inside Sara’s head, though I think the narrative makes it clear that Sara had almost no control in NYC. Not over her art, her relationship, her living space, and still did not any more so on the island. Except for her art, which became tattooing in the native style. She tattooed herself and others, paying homage to each event in a very strange long life. The book ends with the reader not knowing which life Sara will choose, as thirty years later she was finally “rescued” at age 67. She’d become a tribal elder. My guess - she chooses neither.

[Kim Armstrong Silcox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sara Ehrenreich and her husband Phillip are bohemian artists in 1920's New York when they board a ship to the South Pacific on a trip to find masks carved by islanders for a wealthy collector. They are abandoned by the ship's crew when a fierce storm blows in. The storm causes their tent to blow apart and when it wraps around the smoke hole of a village hut killing the inhabitants, they are blamed. As punishment they are tattooed on their faces. Tattoos tell stories and over the next 30 years Sarah becomes the village tattoo artist, weaving hopes, sorrows and stories on the bodies of the islanders as well as herself. When Life Magazine comes to find her and brings her back to New York, Sara, now an old woman, has a hard time adjusting.
Great story but I feel like more could have been written about her assimilation into the island community.

[Tracie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was good, but not great. The main character, Sara, and her husband survive a tropical storm that maroons them on an island. They are given horrible face tattoos for their mistreatment of the people there, but then Sara eventually becomes one of them, using her skin to document her life stories. I think the book had good bones, but it left me wishing the writer had gone a bit further in describing how Sara assimilated, and how she felt to have lost 30 years of her artistic life in America. I never understood why she was welcomed into this community when she and her husband had come to take from them and then caused grief to the community. It wasn't fleshed out well.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you cross a Jewish socialist 1st generation American woman with an Amelia Earhart adventure of disappearance -- the stage is set for this novel. There is something compulsive and edge-y and still recognizable or comfortable in Ciment's storytelling that I love.Her people ( well characters) are vivid, not entirely likable which is part of what makes them so engrossing and sympathetic. Tattoo's are also a character here-- as culture, art, commendation, and rebellion. How does one re-enter "civilization" and evaluate life when time has leapt far beyond your lost island in the 20th Century.

[Tutankhamun18 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this on one saturday. I heard about this book and thought it would be very interesting and wanted to read it. It did not disapoint. Very strange story, which draws the reader in. I really apprechiated the descriptions of the art works and art process in this book. Conjured up new york city for me wonderfully. Probably most real feeling descriptions of new york ive ever read. I visited new york last year with my dad and I was really able to conjure up the scenes described. Felt suprisingly sad when Philip dies and Sara is left alone.

[Nikki in Niagara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A woman and her husband are marooned on a South Sea island in the 1930s. We are told the story of their life before and after this. Then thirty years later LIFE magazine comes for her and brings her home. Her entire body is covered in tattoos.

This is an interesting and touching story, A unique one as well. The author uses descriptive language without getting flowery. I flowed with the main character's emotions. While it didn't make a huge impression on me I found it a gently satisfying story.

[Kathy Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very unique, beautifully written story about two artists (one struggling, one successful) who fall in love in NYC during the Early Modernists era. When the depression hits, they lose everything and struggle to survive. When offered a chance to journey by sea to faraway lands and search for unique pieces for a wealthy art collector, they jump at it. Due to a series of unfortunate events, they become stranded on a tropical island inhabited by a primitive tribe who express their art in the form of human tattooing. I won’t give away the whole story, but it is a quick read and well worth it.

[Chinasa · Rating 2 out of 5]

The characters were so pretentious and irritating. The writing was good at points but felt cheesy a lot of the time. 30 years on the island yet the details were so scarce. Jill basically said “she was on the island for 30 years” and never said anything more. It was so glossed over and surface level. Really disappointed. Did I mention the characters were irritating? So stuck up and yucky. Couldn’t care less about them.