Seven Tattoos: A Memoir in the Flesh
In a highly original and absorbing memoir, the short-fiction author Tractenberg struggles to explain the ways of God to man?or maybe just to himself. Each tattoo, like Catholicism's seven sacraments, leaves an indelible mark on Tractenberg, which he uses to trace his life from early rebelliousness in the 1960s, through drug addiction on New York's Lower East Side, to an attempt at atonement with parents, lovers, and himself. Tractenberg views God as a Mafia capo di tutti capi, a supreme being with a "trigger finger...as itchy as Dirty Harry's." Yet, for all its irreverence, his memoir records a serious spiritual quest?a search for answers to questions at the heart of the world's major religions: the nature of God, the cause of suffering, and the meaning of life itself. Highly recommended.?William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNYCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.