Tattoo Girl [Paperback]

Brooke Stevens (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 21, 2001

Tattoo girl is an evocative story of perseverance and discovery in the face of insanity and corruption. A young girl is found alone in an Ohio mall long after closing hours, unable to speak, nd covered head to foot in fish-scale tattoos. Her identity presents an enigma. She is adopted and named Emma by Lucy, a former circus fat lady. Warned that Emma maybe in in danger from whoever gave her the mysterious tattoos, Lucy goes in search of Emma's real identity, a quest that leads Lucy to a confrontation with the demons haunting her past.
Tattoo Girl is the story of a woman and her adopted daughter, who ndertake a difficult journey into salvation's dark heart in order to rediscover their identities--identities that were crushed by evil men. By turns surreal , nightmarish, and heartwarming, Tattoo Girl is ultimately an affirmation of the powerful bond between two people overcoming adversity.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The author of the acclaimed Circus of the Earth and Air (1994) opens this second novel with a nightmare's intensity: a girl appears wandering at a mall, mute, muddy, and covered in tattooed fish scales. When Lucy, a former circus fat lady, adopts the tattooed girl, Emma, she experiences deep love perhaps for the first time. But Emma is in danger; someone is trying to find her, leaving a string of murders, and her psyche is so disturbed that she tries to kill herself in her sleep. Lucy's search for the source of Emma's trauma drags her through the gallery of profound abuses in her own past, ending with the same psychotic, evangelical preacher-cult leader who'd raped her in her youth. In direct prose, both unflinching and lyrical, Stevens explores many of the themes that made the first book so compelling; the ideas of human cruelty, salvation, and insanity's grip on the collective unconscious are set against a circus backdrop--and the result is a twisted coming-of-age story filled with the surreal horror of David Lynch. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Nightmarishly surreal and tenderly human at the same time." --Francesca Lia Block

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; 1st edition (March 21, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312269102
• ISBN-13: 978-0312269104
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,368,457 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Brooke Stevens has held numerous jobs across the country. He's worked on a shrimp boat off of Fort Meyers, Florida, as a bartender in New Orleans, as a steam locomotive engineer on the Mt. Washington Cog Railroad, as movie programmer at the Bleecker Street Cinema in New York, as a horse groom in Ringling Brothers Circus, a screenplay writer and a creative writing teacher at Sarah Lawrence Collge. His novels have been translated into French, German and Japanese. They have also been published in the UK. Please visit his website www.brookestevens.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intimate and entertaining page turner, March 6, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Tattoo Girl (Paperback)

Emma, the title character in Brooke Stevens' new novel Tattoo Girl is mysterious and compelling in ways that few literary characters are. When we first meet her she is mute, covered on much of her body by tattoos, and clearly fearful. The mystery of how she escapes from whomever is tormenting her and the potent bond that is created between her and the other powerful character Lucy, gripped this reader from the beginning to the last page of Tattoo Girl. Mr. Stevens writing transcends anything he has done before and he establishes characters that are highly believable even within the unusual world that they inhabit. The world of these characters is both familiar and loving but also full of imminent danger. The story unfolds in a deliberate and frightening manner that kept me on the edge of my seat. I can't wait to see the movie.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, April 30, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Tattoo Girl (Paperback)

A thriller about a girl, a woman and to a lesser extent a dwarf trying to reconcile themselves with their pasts. The writing is simple, deceptively plain almost, but somehow it has a dream-like quality that makes what's happening in the book feel like it's happening to you-it's extremely believable, though the story is highly imaginative and ultimately powerful. I haven't come across a more captivating novel in many years. I read a review of it that said that it is as much about being sad as it is about being frightened, that's a very good description. Having just started the author's first book, I'm finding it similar in many ways. I believe this writer is a master of suspense, but he's doing more than just making you turn the pages. The novel was passed along to me at my office. I'm glad it was.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an astoundingly philosophical message from a touching story, October 22, 2001

By 

C. Smith (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tattoo Girl (Paperback)

I was reading Nietzsche's "the Antichrist" at this time and read this on a whim. The story is heart-wrenching and touching in all the awful things that happen. It's completely unpredictable and exceptionally well written. To think such a great work of fiction can have such philsophical significance.