Dorothy Parker's Elbow : Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos

Previously considered the domain of bikers and a rite of passage in the services, tattoos have crawled from society's fringes and onto the ankles of starlets and the biceps of bankers. In this volume, stories from writers including Sylvia Plath and Ray Bradbury capture the tattoo experience. "One the province of sailors and bikers, tattoos have emerged from backdoor parlors to suburban shopping malls. Today they adorn starlets' ankles, housewives' shoulders, and bankers' biceps. Fashionable? Most definitely, Respectable? Not always. Evocative, transformative, still dangerous? Just ask many of our most gifted writers across several colorful decades, who have found the images of the tattoo needle a vivid subject for the language of the pen. Brought to you by two editors who are themselves widely praised (and proudly tattooed) authors, these stories, poems, and memoirs span the range of human experience, from the awesome to the absurd. From Flannery O'Connor's likeness of God to Sylvia Plath's fifteen-dollar eagle, from Herman Melville's power of the primitive to Mark Doty's embrace of the ineradicable to Franz Kafka's lasting mark of the penal colony, this bold exploration of the illuminated body is guaranteed to get under your skin."--BOOK JACKET. In the bestselling tradition of Drinking, Smoking, and Screwing: Great Writers on Great Times comes a hip collection of classic and contemporary stories, essays, and poems about tattoos. Previously considered the domain of bikers and a rite of passage in the army, tattoos have crawled out of society’s fringes and onto the ankles of starlets and the biceps of bankers. While still risque enough to raise a mother-in-law’s eyebrow, tattoos have come to be one of the most popular forms of personal expression. DOROTHY PARKER’S ELBOW brings together some of the most erotic, humorous, and vivid fiction, essays, and poetry that explore the mysterious fascination and the intensity of emotion attached to the act of being tattooed. Readers will join great writers, including Flannery O’Connor, Rick Moody, Elizabeth McCracken, Sylvia Plath, and more in celebrating the tattoo experience in all of its rebellious glory.