Reviews
" The Blue Tattoo goes far beyond a simple reconstruction of the facts, as it investigates the long life of a woman first captured by Indians but later captured by the men in her life."--Ann Ronald, Bookin' with Sunny, "The Blue Tattoo goes far beyond a simple reconstruction of the facts, as it investigates the long life of a woman first captured by Indians but later captured by the men in her life." Bookin' With Sunny, "Mifflin engagingly describes Oatman's ordeal and theorizes about its impact on Oatman herself as well as on popular imagination.... Her book adds nuance to Oatman's story and also humanizes the Mohave who adopted her. Recommended for general readers as well as students and scholars."Library Journal, "Mifflin engagingly describes Oatman's ordeal and theorizes about its impact on Oatman herself as well as on popular imagination.... Her book adds nuance to Oatman's story and also humanizes the Mohave who adopted her. Recommended for general readers as well as students and scholars." Library Journal, "An important and engrossing book, which reveals as much about the appetites and formulas of emerging mass culture as it does about tribal cultures in nineteenth-century America."-- Times Literary Supplement, "Margot Mifflin is a great storyteller. . . . The Blue Tattoo is well written and well researched; it re-opens the story of white women and men going West and Native people trying to survive these travels."June Namias, Pacific Historical Review, "Margot Mifflin has written a winner. . . . The Blue Tattoo offers quite intense drama along with thorough scholarship."--Elmore Leonard, best-selling author of Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories, "Lucid and engaging, The Blue Tattoo contextualizes Olive Oatman''s life by delving into Mohave culture and history (including interviews with contemporary Mohaves) and by explaining why her story captured the American popular imagination and continued to be retold and revisited so many times, in so many different media."-Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola, editor of Women's Indian Captivity Narratives, "Ms. Mifflin did a amazing job in capturing the life of Olive Oatman; before, during and after her capture by the Indians. This is definitely a winner."--GrumpyDan.blogspot.com, "Mifflin does a careful job of reconstructing the fascinating story behind how this woman came to wear that tattoo, ascertaining the most accurate possible accounting of the 1851 murder of Oatman's family near Yuma, Arizona, her captivity by a band of Yavapai Indians, her sale to the Mohaves, and Oatman's eventual return to white society."--Jenny Shank, NewWest.com, "Margot Mifflin has written a winner. . . .The Blue Tattoooffers quite intense drama along with thorough scholarship."Elmore Leonard, "Margot Mifflin sketches out a life in fine detail in her book The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman . . . . It rouses strong metaphors with timeless applications: the idea of what marks us, that which comprises our stories and how they are interpreted, appropriated or manipulated."--Melissa Corliss Delorenzo, Her Circle, " The Blue Tattoo tells the harrowing story of this forgotten heroine of frontier America. . . . This is a revealing read as it delves into the social morays and prejudice of the time."--Sandy Amazeen, MonstersAndCritics.com, "An important and engrossing book, which reveals as much about the appetites and formulas of emerging mass culture as it does about tribal cultures in nineteenth-century America."Christine Bold,Times Literary Supplement, "Mifflin's treatment of Olive's sojourns [provides] an excellent teaching opportunity about America's ongoing captivation with ethnic/gender crossings." Western American Literature, " The Blue Tattoo is a wonderful peek at an era and a literary genre by a first-class researcher. And if Olive Oatman could time-travel back to read the book, I think she'd be delighted to discover that finally there was a sympathetic author more interested in explaining than exploiting her captivity story."--Jack Shakely, Internet Review of Books, "The Blue Tattoo is well-researched history that reads like unbelievable fiction, telling the story of Olive Oatman, the first tattooed American white woman. . . . Mifflin weaves together Olive''s story with the history of American westward expansion, the Mohave, tattooing in America, and captivity literature in the 1800s."-Elizabeth Quinn, Bust, "Mifflin, whose admirable and enjoyable book offers analysis of both the reality and the mythology of Oatman's life, shows that there is much beyond the blue tattoo."--Spencer Dew, Rain Taxi, "Mifflin's treatment of Olive's sojourns [provides] an excellent teaching opportunity about America's ongoing captivation with ethnic/gender crossings."Western American Literature
