Peter Trachtenberg is the author of the memoir 7 Tattoos and The Book of Calamities, a hybrid of journalism, moral philosophy, and personal essay on the theme of suffering and its narratives.
A. Alvarez, Saul Bellow, Joan Didion, Susan Griffin, Elaine Scarry, Susan Sontag, Robert Stone, Simone Weil
Favorite Books
Lolita, Pale Fire-- Vladimir Nabokov
Bleak House-- Charles Dickens
Ulysses -- James Joyce
V, Gravity's Rainbow -- Thomas Pynchon
Valis -- Philip K. Dick
Bad Behavior, Veronica -- Mary Gaitskill
Madame Bovary-- Gustave Flaubert
Collected Stories-- Anton Chekhov
A Chorus of Stones-- Susan Griffin
The Body in Pain -- Elaine Scarry
Waiting for God -- Simone Weil
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony -- Roberto Colasso
Favorite Authors
Vladimir Nabokov
Anton Chekhov
Charles Dickens
James Joyce
Thomas Pynchon
Mary Gaitskill
Samuel Beckett
Denis Johnson
Don DeLillo
Philip K. Dick
What I'm Reading
This Republic of Suffering -- Drew Gilpin Faust
Tree of Smoke -- Denis Johnson
I've written about Don and Sally Goodrich in my book. On September 11, 2001, their son Peter was killed on United 75, the second plane to hit the World Trade Center .
