Blood and Lightning

On Becoming a Tattooer

By: Dustin Kiskaddon

Narrated by: Chaz Allen

Any tattoo is the outcome of an intimate, often hidden process. The people, bodies, and money that make tattooing what it is blend together and form a heady cocktail, something described by Matt, the owner of Oakland's Premium Tattoo, as "blood and lightning."

Dustin Kiskaddon draws on his own apprenticeship with Matt and takes us behind the scenes into the complex world of professional tattooers. We join people who must routinely manage a messy and carnal type of work. Blood and Lightning brings us through the tattoo shop, where the smell of sterilizing agents, the hum of machines, and the sound of music spill out onto the back patio.

Having tattooed more than five hundred people, Kiskaddon is able to freshly articulate the physical, mental, emotional, and moral life of tattooers. His captivating account explores the challenges they face on the job, including the crushing fear of making mistakes on someone else's body, the role of masculinity in evolving tattoo worlds, appropriate and inappropriate intimacy, and the task of navigating conversations about color and race.

Ultimately, the stories in this book teach us about the roles our bodies play in the social world. Kiskaddon guides us through a strangely familiar world, inviting each of us to become a tattooer along the way.

The book is published by Stanford University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

"A stellar and vivid depiction of an industry that has long been mythologized in popular culture." (Booklist)

"A charming and thoughtful slice of life." (Publishers Weekly)

"An illuminating peek behind the doors of a tattoo shop, digging into the realities, ethics, and philosophy of altering the bodies of strangers." (Foreword Reviews)

©2024 Dustin Kiskaddon (P)2024 Redwood Audiobooks