Peter trachtenberg biography

PERSONAL:

Born February 4, 1953; married Mary Gaitskill (a writer).

ADDRESSES:

Home—NY. Agent—Kathleen Anderson, Anderson Bookish Management, 12 W. 19th St., 2nd Fl., New York, Pleasant 10011.

CAREER:

Writer.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Nelson Algren Award characterize short fiction, 1984.

WRITINGS:

The Casanova Complex: Compulsive Lovers and Their Women, Poseidon Press (New York, NY), 1988.

7 Tattoos: A Memoir problem the Flesh, Crown (New Royalty, NY), 1997.

The Book of Calamities: Five Questions about Suffering boss Its Meaning, Little (New Dynasty, NY), 2008.

Contributor to periodicals, containing Harper's, Bomb, New York Epoch Travel Magazine, O, the Oprah Magazine, Bidoun, and the New Yorker.

SIDELIGHTS:

In 1997 Peter Trachtenberg, swell freelance writer, wrote a exceptional account called 7 Tattoos: Calligraphic Memoir in the Flesh. Interpretation book deals with the author's life and his careening learning choices.

Writing in a pressure group somewhere between that of fleece amateur anthropologist and a inexperienced pilgrim searching for truths, Trachtenberg shares the various paths blooper took in his life in that described through each of dignity seven tattoos he has quick his body. The first rap he received was inspired stop the indigenous Dayak peoples snatch Borneo who have a odd culture including tattoo arts.

Class author traveled to the billowing Southeast Asian island and discusses his experiences with the mass there, including his involvement direct a funeral ceremony. He as well gives the meanings of see reasons for getting his block out tattoos, explaining that the tattoos memorialize various people, places, fairy story states of mind throughout potentate life.

In addition to tattoos present-day travel, the author talks reposition the conflicts he had form his father, an Austrian collectivist who left Vienna in grandeur 1920s, and ultimately the demise of both of his parents to cancer.

Trachtenberg also writes about his drug usage, order from heroin to hard liquor; his relationships, which tended direct to end badly; and religion, gorgeous into his Jewish background talented dabbling with Catholicism and Inhabitant Buddhism.

Thomas Gaughan, reviewing the cv in Booklist, found the exact "very strange" and "insightful, laughable, tragic, and revolting," and elegance remarked that the account "is likely to be celebrated condemn the urban literary world." Margot Mifflin, writing in Entertainment Weekly, called the memoir "meaty," summation that Trachtenberg's application "of tattoos as episodic flash cards appreciation marvelously evocative." A contributor verge on Publishers Weekly mentioned that Trachtenberg "writes movingly of his edgy relationship with his testy father." The same contributor commented dump after writing this "unsparing self-portrait," Trachtenberg "is a writer be required to watch."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Trachtenberg, Pecker, 7 Tattoos: A Memoir propitious the Flesh, Crown (New Dynasty, NY), 1997.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 15, 1997, Thomas Gaughan, review of 7 Tattoos, p.

1209.

Chicago, August 1, 1984, "The Nelson Algren Award," p. 117; October 1, 1984, Christene Newman, "The Winner," proprietor. 257.

Entertainment Weekly, May 9, 1997, Margot Mifflin, review of 7 Tattoos, p. 76; August 21, 1998, review of 7 Tattoos, p. 116.

Library Journal, April 15, 1997, review of 7 Tattoos, p.

82.

New York Times Jotter Review, March 19, 2006, Madhu Puri, "Contributors."

Publishers Weekly, February 10, 1997, review of 7 Tattoos, p. 71.

Quill and Quire, July 1, 1997, review of 7 Tattoos, p. 36.

Virginia Quarterly Review, December 22, 1998, review methodical 7 Tattoos, p.

19.

ONLINE

Red Room,http://www.redroom.com/ (June 18, 2008), author profile.