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Tattoo
TATTOO continues the earthy, honst, and ultimately triumphant story begun by Earl Thompson in A Garden of Sand. It is an epic account of a generation--America in the 1940s.
688 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
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About the author
Earl Thompson
11 books26 followersEarl Thompson ( May 24, 1931 – November 9, 1978 ) was a leading American writer of naturalist prose. Nominated for the National Book Award for A Garden of Sand and chosen by the Book of the Month Club for Tattoo, Thompson died suddenly at the peak of his success, having published just three novels—the fourth The Devil to Pay, was published posthumously.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
July 19, 2011
Leaving behind his crumpled mother with competing feelings of disgust and longing for her glory days of radiant, knee-weakening red hair and run-free hose, Jack flees his taboo-transgressing penury in order to inveigle his way into the United States Navy and swap the dust and grime of urban-hopping for that of the salt and spray of chasing islands. The hardships and hard knocks, con jobs and concupiscence, back-slapping and backhanding, grifts and griefs, sad sacks and sack-hopping of A Garden of Sand have been transferred from the depression-daubed thirties to the war-jazzed forties, and Jack stakes his claim to what he can manage from life in the Second World War and the Korean hiccup that closed out the decade. The world hasn't gotten a smidgen easier to get by in—and while Thompson's opening book placed the reader inside the mind of a tough-lotted boy with uncanny verisimilitude, the sequel amps up the testosterone to seat us behind the eyes of a young man whose past haunts and invigorates him, and who realizes that you can take chances when you have nothing to lose. Where Jack winds up doesn't seem to bear as much importance as what he does—and who he fucks—along the way there. A slice of sweaty, blue-collar life from a bygone era captured in hard-edges on the page.
April 13, 2015
I’ve read the book at least four times, and Thompson remains one of my main inspirations. I think he’s one of America’s greatest almost forgotten writers. Someday college courses will be devoted to his work.
December 25, 2009
A true dime store novel -- and I mean that in the best possible way. No pretentiousness here.
One of those wonderfully lurid bits of pulp that could only be pounded out by some guy chain smoking Chesterfields, while swigging from a fifth of scotch next to the old Remington; chock full of gritty violence and hot 'n' steamy sex. Makes ya nostalgic for a time when the public devoured books like this, rather than vampire novels, or touchy-feely chick lit.
One of those wonderfully lurid bits of pulp that could only be pounded out by some guy chain smoking Chesterfields, while swigging from a fifth of scotch next to the old Remington; chock full of gritty violence and hot 'n' steamy sex. Makes ya nostalgic for a time when the public devoured books like this, rather than vampire novels, or touchy-feely chick lit.
December 29, 2010
Earl Thompson is a great writer.
Read
November 19, 2010Great reading. One of the best I've ever read. It's so easy to follow, and relate to the main character. Interesting to the point of picking it up first thing in the morning.
December 26, 2025
Capolavoro indimenticabile
December 22, 2025
Il più bel libro letto quest’anno. Capolavoro.
January 3, 2015
I took 5 1/2 years of English in high school and I learned one important lesson: high school English sucks! I came away from all my honors courses thinking that if guys like Hemingway hadn't shot himself or Fitzgerald hadn't drank himself to death I'd be forced to kill them myself. Then when I was in the Navy I was stationed in Bremerton, WA for awhile. Right outside the base on my way to the ferry terminal I'd stop at a cool little comic book store that also sold used paperbacks (Sadly, it's gone). I picked this up one day on a whim and I was blown away by this book! I couldn't believe how this book made an impact on. There was nothing like reading "fuck" or "shit" after all that crap I was force fed, or reading about the hidden side of life that no one would dare expose. It is graphic without being pornographic. This work is not filth; its attraction is the honesty and pain that Thompson so strikingly describes. It is a hard slice of life autobiography that masquerades as fiction. As I made my way through this book I finally learned what writing was all about. Letting out what's inside you, no matter how ugly, has made its way into my own writing and I learned it from Thompson. By exposing the grotesquery one can also show its beauty and Thompson has done it better than any other writer I've read. I've read all of his books (unfortunately there are only 4) and this one is by far the best. I recently looked at it again, rereading random selections as I flipped through it and the sledgehammer like impact on me has not lessened after all these years.
June 8, 2025
Incroyable, je l'ai préféré à Un jardin de sable que j'avais pourtant adoré.
On voit Jack grandir, le voir plonger dans le seul échappatoire qu'il a pour sortir de la pauvreté dans laquelle il a grandi, mais quand même se faire hanter par ce qu'il est et dans quelles conditions il a été élevé.
C'est extrêmement touchant de le voir merder, faire des erreurs évidentes, le voir devenir à moitié fou, et pourtant comprendre tout le contexte qui l'a mené à ça.
Ce livre force à l'empathie en dépeignant le point de vue de Jack sans aucun artifice, sans détour, et avec un réalisme qui fait froid dans le dos.
On voit Jack grandir, le voir plonger dans le seul échappatoire qu'il a pour sortir de la pauvreté dans laquelle il a grandi, mais quand même se faire hanter par ce qu'il est et dans quelles conditions il a été élevé.
C'est extrêmement touchant de le voir merder, faire des erreurs évidentes, le voir devenir à moitié fou, et pourtant comprendre tout le contexte qui l'a mené à ça.
Ce livre force à l'empathie en dépeignant le point de vue de Jack sans aucun artifice, sans détour, et avec un réalisme qui fait froid dans le dos.
April 14, 2015
I read this book almost a generation ago and it remains burned into my memory. I hope to live long enough to see the great Earl Thompson get the honor he deserves.
If I met some young person who was worth the effort, I'd shove "Tattoo" into one hand and "On the Road" into the other, saying, "Kid, this is all you need to know."
If I met some young person who was worth the effort, I'd shove "Tattoo" into one hand and "On the Road" into the other, saying, "Kid, this is all you need to know."
June 13, 2012
This book just blew me away with its stripped-to-the-bone un-nostalgic look at a young man's growing up from Depression poverty and seeking refuge in the Navy, a little too late for war but ready for life. The sex and realism really come through - nothing glossed over here.
July 6, 2014
Started this morning and just finished. This book could be the 'you' version of Edward Fortyhands. Incredibly well-written and moving, with many sections about love and loss and how to fuck it all up that cut you deep.
November 27, 2011
just finished w/a garden of sand...jacky, 14 in may in that one, determined to join the marines, on his way back to wichita...now this one....
okay...so here at the 186 page mark and the war is over.
this one starts out w/this line:
that germany had surrendered smacked of yet another damn thing too keep the boy from glory.
and i'm reminded of john knowles's story, a separate peace.
about the only thing the two stories might have in common is that boys want to go to war, want to be men, want to establish themselves....and so on.
anyway, jacky uses some stuff to change his birth certificate, tries the marines no go there, tries the navy, and although he is under weight--112 pounds--he is only 14--he forges the necessary line in his birth certificate, acquires his grandparents' blessing to enter the service, and does do.
but here by the 186-page mark, the war is over....v-j day.
we've just witnessed an event w/jacky and a sergeant (who is as queer as a nine-dollar bill) on the train back to kansas...a scene that portrays the "gay"...we are politically correct now, and though the word "gay" is not used, we can't speak about things w/o a nod that all things are okay.
well...all things are NOT okay, this thing called "diversity" does not recognize MY RIGHT to believe whatever and whenever i want or what 4,000 years of religion and civilization has provided...my belief system does not count....only YOUR BELIEF SYSTEM counts here and i'll try to play along...
anyway, interesting scene on the train, this sergeant who is decorated is returning home, fearful...and he wants to take jacky home to chicago with him to have someone with him....the guy leaves a book and his watch however....and it takes two of jacky's friends frorm kansas, al and gorilla, to inform him that the other was "queer as a nine-dollar bill". i wonder how long before thompson is censored and rewritten like huck finn?
onward and upward.
yeah so i'm at page 233 here, but i wanted to write a bit about this thingy thompson might have going....
....say like on page 79...he's w/this avis, this girl who shares his birthday, may twenty-fourth...so they are geminis as she explains to him...they are "cosmic twins"....that they "have dual personalities"...
a bit later, there's this "he loved her the way he loved the woman's voice in his head." this is an idea that is repeated several times up to p 233 where i'm at now...i suspect it continues.
later he hears a black woman's voice coming from...a radio?....kansas city blues...likened to a low grade current flowing into him w/a feeling like love..."venus darling was the voice that always spoke in his head! he was certain." (131) he is watching some sort of stage act...later when he sees her sans get-up...that image is enough--"she hadn't been the woman whose voice spoke in his head after all."
he uses italicized words to indicate this voice, forget it, darling (134) the voice says at one point when some other recruits give him a ration of crap...
at home there, back in kansas, just after v-j day, thompson uses a dream to describe the voice....a beautiful woman, although definition is lacking other than that...(192)
...thanksgiving day morning...8 eastern....humpty-zwatch zulu time...set your transmitters and receivers...all that stuff about voices has stopped......it is like w/the last entry there...192? thereabouts?...i'm at page 359, chapter 23....
muskrat and his friends have gone from okinawa where muskrat went on a souvenir safari w/some marines, shot a jap--i recall japanese coming out of caves on islands in the pacific in my youth...i think that happened-=-hidden japanese emerging--from war's end until/...maybe it is still happening? and it's simply not "correct" to report on it? yeah...i could believe that....that correct part.
and then they went to a hospital ship...delivering 500 nurses to...japan i think and then relieving the uss hope on duty off the coast of shanghai...meanwhile, muskrat sees another sailor corn-holing another sailor while underway...i believe it was a big black man corn-holing another...and...he has seen a big black sailor holing a nurse, her feet off the deck, her face an ecstatic...shadow or something...over the black's shoulder...and meanwhile...muskrat and two of his buds, al, gorilla, and keating...keating has the biggest donk among white men ever seen...the four of them take turns w/a drunk nurse during a storm at sea...but they all use rubbers so as to prevent the family way
weird, cause i just watched, saw stephen king at the jfk library talking about his book about the 60s, how a couple there had to leave town to "do it". here in thompson's story the sin is evident for all to see and participate in, no hold's barred...corn-holing included. a word thompson uses/used on occasion.
there have been a few other never saw that before in stories...i have witnessed unmarried sex of all manner and persuasion....but there was one scene where his mother held her pussy shut as she pissed, to act like a douche? before letting it whiz out....and in a recent scene, after visiting a chinese whore=house....complete with r/l gall-or...muskrat swabs out the end of his urethra w/some device...yum!
i was cringing as i read that one....some sort of anti-v/d prevention and he wasn't checking for chlamydia.
onward and upward.
finished it last night, the 26th nov 2011
in a sense, unless jacky died in this one (he does not and there's another volume to the trilogy as i understand it...this is the second) then nothing described could really be a dreaded spoiler. other people die in this story...this is after all, a story about life, jack andersen's life, and those around him.
this 686 page story goes into detail about his life from age 14 or so to a point where he has turned 19...whereas the first story about jacky-- a garden of sand begins w/that line about the war ending (ww2)too soon--in this tattoo he does get to go on that souvenir safari on okinawa and shoot a jap...and by story end he is wounded in korea.
there was nothing more about voices so i take it that...whatever it was...questioning by thompson through jacky's character was there and then--there could be more to it, one could argue...i won't.
he beds every woman he comes across, and he continues that even after he is married. is that okay? no, it is not. he pays the price for that, his first marriage ends. does he learn from it? he claims to be "in love" again and that "love" is reciprocated this time--it was not the first time through--she said as much--i don't love you--so give the guy a moment of grace.
so...in story one the scene moves from kansas to the south gulf coast and back to kansas...this one moves from kansas to california, to the sea, to okinawa, to the coast of china, back to kansas, to california, to germany...to korea...
jacky joins the army at one point--this after his failed marriage, after he heads to california on route 66...heh! just that one ref to the fabled highway though...it does go west...as it goes east...
jacky at times lives under his own standard, and he can't seem to grasp the idea that he needs to live according to others standard at times--like getting to forking work on time and no, fifteen minutes is fifteen minutes late. he pules and whines about some strange things at times...much like his grandfather....the proverbial old man, as his biological father died in book one, a garden of sand...
i'm reminded again of stephen king speaking at the jfk library, interviewed by tom perrotta, speaking about characters in 11/22/63 who had to go out of town for their unmarried sex, purchasing condoms from a drugstore three towns over. that does not happen in tattoo...in this story, you need to remind yourself time and again that this isn't the wonderful 60s or 70s that gave us unbridled passion and illicit wanton sex....and 1 out of 2 marriages ending in divorce....verily, hallelujah and amen...this story happens at the end of ww2 and bring us to korea...1950 or so...
does that mean that people did not have unmarrried sex in the 40s and 50s? they certainly did, but there is/was not much in this story to indicate that what jacky does, how he behaves is not the norm, and yet maybe that is the point...maybe that is sposed to be a given?
they story contains moments in time that must be autobiographical....urchings...small kids popping up from beneath some sort of boardwalk or pier in china...tsinsgtao or something like that...horrid spelling you bet...sue me..
but these moments like that...orphans apparently, popping up from where they've gathered to sleep....a kind of lord of the flies moment.
there are other things like that...
anyway...good read...and as i understand, the next one...the devil to pay...jacky's name is changed to jarl.....in this one, he was called muskrat by his navy buddies....for a time.
okay...so here at the 186 page mark and the war is over.
this one starts out w/this line:
that germany had surrendered smacked of yet another damn thing too keep the boy from glory.
and i'm reminded of john knowles's story, a separate peace.
about the only thing the two stories might have in common is that boys want to go to war, want to be men, want to establish themselves....and so on.
anyway, jacky uses some stuff to change his birth certificate, tries the marines no go there, tries the navy, and although he is under weight--112 pounds--he is only 14--he forges the necessary line in his birth certificate, acquires his grandparents' blessing to enter the service, and does do.
but here by the 186-page mark, the war is over....v-j day.
we've just witnessed an event w/jacky and a sergeant (who is as queer as a nine-dollar bill) on the train back to kansas...a scene that portrays the "gay"...we are politically correct now, and though the word "gay" is not used, we can't speak about things w/o a nod that all things are okay.
well...all things are NOT okay, this thing called "diversity" does not recognize MY RIGHT to believe whatever and whenever i want or what 4,000 years of religion and civilization has provided...my belief system does not count....only YOUR BELIEF SYSTEM counts here and i'll try to play along...
anyway, interesting scene on the train, this sergeant who is decorated is returning home, fearful...and he wants to take jacky home to chicago with him to have someone with him....the guy leaves a book and his watch however....and it takes two of jacky's friends frorm kansas, al and gorilla, to inform him that the other was "queer as a nine-dollar bill". i wonder how long before thompson is censored and rewritten like huck finn?
onward and upward.
yeah so i'm at page 233 here, but i wanted to write a bit about this thingy thompson might have going....
....say like on page 79...he's w/this avis, this girl who shares his birthday, may twenty-fourth...so they are geminis as she explains to him...they are "cosmic twins"....that they "have dual personalities"...
a bit later, there's this "he loved her the way he loved the woman's voice in his head." this is an idea that is repeated several times up to p 233 where i'm at now...i suspect it continues.
later he hears a black woman's voice coming from...a radio?....kansas city blues...likened to a low grade current flowing into him w/a feeling like love..."venus darling was the voice that always spoke in his head! he was certain." (131) he is watching some sort of stage act...later when he sees her sans get-up...that image is enough--"she hadn't been the woman whose voice spoke in his head after all."
he uses italicized words to indicate this voice, forget it, darling (134) the voice says at one point when some other recruits give him a ration of crap...
at home there, back in kansas, just after v-j day, thompson uses a dream to describe the voice....a beautiful woman, although definition is lacking other than that...(192)
...thanksgiving day morning...8 eastern....humpty-zwatch zulu time...set your transmitters and receivers...all that stuff about voices has stopped......it is like w/the last entry there...192? thereabouts?...i'm at page 359, chapter 23....
muskrat and his friends have gone from okinawa where muskrat went on a souvenir safari w/some marines, shot a jap--i recall japanese coming out of caves on islands in the pacific in my youth...i think that happened-=-hidden japanese emerging--from war's end until/...maybe it is still happening? and it's simply not "correct" to report on it? yeah...i could believe that....that correct part.
and then they went to a hospital ship...delivering 500 nurses to...japan i think and then relieving the uss hope on duty off the coast of shanghai...meanwhile, muskrat sees another sailor corn-holing another sailor while underway...i believe it was a big black man corn-holing another...and...he has seen a big black sailor holing a nurse, her feet off the deck, her face an ecstatic...shadow or something...over the black's shoulder...and meanwhile...muskrat and two of his buds, al, gorilla, and keating...keating has the biggest donk among white men ever seen...the four of them take turns w/a drunk nurse during a storm at sea...but they all use rubbers so as to prevent the family way
weird, cause i just watched, saw stephen king at the jfk library talking about his book about the 60s, how a couple there had to leave town to "do it". here in thompson's story the sin is evident for all to see and participate in, no hold's barred...corn-holing included. a word thompson uses/used on occasion.
there have been a few other never saw that before in stories...i have witnessed unmarried sex of all manner and persuasion....but there was one scene where his mother held her pussy shut as she pissed, to act like a douche? before letting it whiz out....and in a recent scene, after visiting a chinese whore=house....complete with r/l gall-or...muskrat swabs out the end of his urethra w/some device...yum!
i was cringing as i read that one....some sort of anti-v/d prevention and he wasn't checking for chlamydia.
onward and upward.
finished it last night, the 26th nov 2011
in a sense, unless jacky died in this one (he does not and there's another volume to the trilogy as i understand it...this is the second) then nothing described could really be a dreaded spoiler. other people die in this story...this is after all, a story about life, jack andersen's life, and those around him.
this 686 page story goes into detail about his life from age 14 or so to a point where he has turned 19...whereas the first story about jacky-- a garden of sand begins w/that line about the war ending (ww2)too soon--in this tattoo he does get to go on that souvenir safari on okinawa and shoot a jap...and by story end he is wounded in korea.
there was nothing more about voices so i take it that...whatever it was...questioning by thompson through jacky's character was there and then--there could be more to it, one could argue...i won't.
he beds every woman he comes across, and he continues that even after he is married. is that okay? no, it is not. he pays the price for that, his first marriage ends. does he learn from it? he claims to be "in love" again and that "love" is reciprocated this time--it was not the first time through--she said as much--i don't love you--so give the guy a moment of grace.
so...in story one the scene moves from kansas to the south gulf coast and back to kansas...this one moves from kansas to california, to the sea, to okinawa, to the coast of china, back to kansas, to california, to germany...to korea...
jacky joins the army at one point--this after his failed marriage, after he heads to california on route 66...heh! just that one ref to the fabled highway though...it does go west...as it goes east...
jacky at times lives under his own standard, and he can't seem to grasp the idea that he needs to live according to others standard at times--like getting to forking work on time and no, fifteen minutes is fifteen minutes late. he pules and whines about some strange things at times...much like his grandfather....the proverbial old man, as his biological father died in book one, a garden of sand...
i'm reminded again of stephen king speaking at the jfk library, interviewed by tom perrotta, speaking about characters in 11/22/63 who had to go out of town for their unmarried sex, purchasing condoms from a drugstore three towns over. that does not happen in tattoo...in this story, you need to remind yourself time and again that this isn't the wonderful 60s or 70s that gave us unbridled passion and illicit wanton sex....and 1 out of 2 marriages ending in divorce....verily, hallelujah and amen...this story happens at the end of ww2 and bring us to korea...1950 or so...
does that mean that people did not have unmarrried sex in the 40s and 50s? they certainly did, but there is/was not much in this story to indicate that what jacky does, how he behaves is not the norm, and yet maybe that is the point...maybe that is sposed to be a given?
they story contains moments in time that must be autobiographical....urchings...small kids popping up from beneath some sort of boardwalk or pier in china...tsinsgtao or something like that...horrid spelling you bet...sue me..
but these moments like that...orphans apparently, popping up from where they've gathered to sleep....a kind of lord of the flies moment.
there are other things like that...
anyway...good read...and as i understand, the next one...the devil to pay...jacky's name is changed to jarl.....in this one, he was called muskrat by his navy buddies....for a time.
February 6, 2021
Really scraping the bottom of the barrel with this piece of work. How did this get on my shelf?
When the library reopens, I know where it's going..
When the library reopens, I know where it's going..
February 11, 2018
687 pages
Read
December 29, 2020classic potboiler from 70s - second reading - likely last
February 27, 2025
I read this when it first came out as a paperback. Loved it.
June 23, 2011
The entire book is apparently an excuse for the protagonist to bed as many ladies of the night as possible. Repeated failures and disappointments make for a supremely depressing and frustrating novel, which I guess is what Thompson was going for here. The coming-of-age aspect if engaging, and it is compelling to watch this guy try to grapple with a broken world in a narration that is gritty, graphic and no-holds-barred. Nonetheless, despite a few rather sublime parts this novel is a grungy traipse through an American nightmare that highlights all the bad without touching on much of the good of life.
December 15, 2011
I first read this book at age 18. It was unlike any book I had read. It was explicit, graphic and shocking. I couldn't put it down. Earl Thompson wrote in a frank manner about subjects and topics that people did not want to acknowledge. The cast of characters is rich, varied and bizarre. The book is a journey in time from Wichita, Kansas to China after World War II to the Korean War.
July 2, 2013
I read this book in 1977, when I was about 19 or so. In the Navy, and if I remember right, alot of time on my hands. It was a thick book,(paperback) and I remember it taking quite awhile to get through it. 35 years later and I can still recall some of the things I read. It made a profound impact on my life at the time.
January 3, 2011
Lengthy story about a young boy and his dysfunctional family. Jack joins the navy at the end of WWII to try to escape his horrible upbringing. One sordid adventure after another takes Jack through disappointment and disillusion with life. Well written but very graphic.
April 21, 2008
Very long but pretty good
May 23, 2012
read when I was 14. quite lurid and made an impression
March 8, 2013
The last of my collection of 20c flea-market books. It would have had more impact if it was a lot shorter, a lot of it was quite repetitive.
November 21, 2019
An American classic.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews