SKIN DEEP: Tattoos, the Disappearing West, Very Bad Men, and My Deep Love for Them All

By age 17, Griffin preferred to "read about Frank and Jesse James than watch Donnie and Marie Osmond on TV. Goodness is often painfully dull...." Working at a photo lab, the Laramie, Wyo., native met the characters at the tattoo parlor next door, befriended the owner, learned the craft and became a tattoo artist there. Griffin injects her eloquent debut memoir with plenty of historical and social facts on tattooing and the West, with such passion and expertise that even super-technical details go down nice and easy. However, despite the author's purple hair, blond dreadlocks and recreational drug use, she never comes off as authentically wild herself. It seems as if she's executing a mandate to hang out and occasionally fall in love with bad boys (although the one she eventually marries—and divorces—isn't), the crowning jewel of which is a disastrous post-divorce liaison with a convicted felon who beats her at gunpoint when she's pregnant. (Due to "an unspoken western code of honor among outlaws," she doesn't press charges.) Thankfully, a clue pops up halfway through the book: readers learn Griffin's from a typical middle-class family whose conventional ambitions for her she is uninterested in fulfilling but which leave her nevertheless conflicted (she finally admits this during a heroin-fueled introspection). Griffin's book is ultimately about how rebelling against her family led to a greater entanglement in a more dangerous dysfunction. Which goes to show: goodness may be painfully dull, but badness can be just plain painful. Photos. (Oct. 6)

Forecast:Griffin's author tour has her driving a classic, red Packard to Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Wyoming, Denver and Boulder, which should spark interest.