My book, Blood and Lightning, explains how tattooers think, feel, and act. I became a tattooer to write it.

Stanford University Press 2024

Red book cover with the title, "Blood and Lightning: On Becoming a Tattooer" written in light text, with the author name, Dustin Kiskaddon in bottom right corner.

“a landmark study of the craft of tattooing that is consistently compelling and rewarding.”


Chicago Review of Books, “12 Must-Read Books of February 2024”

PURCHASE
PURCHASE
Reviews
Reviews

  • "More than any other ethnography I've read, this one breathes on the page."

    JENNIFER C. LENA, author of Entitled: Discriminating Tastes and
    the Expansion of the Arts

  • “This book is a true immersion into what remains an overall obscure practice to the general public."

    MAXIME PLESCIA-BÜCHI, Tattoo Artist, Founder of Sang Bleu studios

  • "Kiskaddon offers rich reflections on questions of permanence, bodily awareness, and managing errors. A must-read.”

    TERRENCE McDONNELL, coauthor of Measuring Culture

  • "This is truly an excellent ethnography"

    KRISTEN BARBER, author of Styling Masculinity: Gender, Class, and Inequality in
    the Men’s Grooming Industry

  • "Both entertaining and humanizing, Kiskaddon's trek through the deeper facets and darker issues of tattooing is a welcomed window to an often misunderstood world"

    GORDON COMBS, Tattoo Artist

  • "Kiskaddon shows how tattoos, like history and storytelling itself, can evolve depending on the body or the world they occupy.”

    DEVIN KATAYAMA, Senior Produce for NPR’s Throughline

in my hands

In My Hands is a multimedia project that involves conversations with interesting folks about people, bodies, and money.

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