Scab Vendor: Confessions of a Tattoo Artist

Famed tattoo artist Shaw (Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes) uses multiple narrative threads, vacillating between first person and third person, to tell his life story in this sprawling, experimental autobiography. The book is framed around an imagined conversation between a young man and a famous tattoo artist named Cigano—Shaw’s alter ego of sorts—interspersed with vignettes from Shaw’s life. Through this framework Shaw revisits his foggy memories of an often chaotic childhood and explores the influence of his actress mother, an alcoholic with a flair for the dramatic (“other kids got [the] Hardy Boys… I got Hieronymus Bosch”), and his largely absent father, famed jazz musician Artie Shaw, on his adult life, which was a whirlpool of drugs and alcohol. The gritty, gutter style of prose is sharpened by Shaw’s gift for dialogue and sharp insight. This tale is one of shame, humility, and wonder at how it all happened. Agent: Mark Gottlieb, Trident Media. (Mar.)