Author: Patti Smith
Publication date: 2010
In Just Kids, Patti Smith takes us back with her to the New York City of the 1960s. Not just to NYC but to the Chelsea Hotel, where she lived for several years with her longtime friend and long ago lover Robert Mapplethorpe. Theirs was a time of creation and art and love.
Patti tells their story with fondness and focus remembering seemingly countless conversations between herself and Mapplethorpe as well as many others within their inner circle. The writer in me wonders if she kept a journal throughout her life though she makes no mention of doing so within the book.
While reading Just Kids, I wrote myself a note: "I could get through this book faster if I didn't stop to Google a name every three pages!" This observation is both true and one of the reasons I so enjoyed this book. In his sheer determination to be a successful artist, Robert Mapplethorpe dragged Patti Smith with him night after night to Max's Kansas City in the hopes of running into Andy Warhol and making those important connections needed to keep in the game.
One of the things I find most admirable about Patti Smith after reading Just Kids is her determination and perseverance. She arrived in NYC with a dream and the address of a friend who'd moved to town before she did. She soon learns that the friend has since moved and is unable to find him for some time. She lives on the streets before a chance meeting with Robert takes them on a path together.
She tells stories of eating lettuce sandwiches and saving nickels for the vending machine, which would provide her next meal. Through it all, she shared it with Robert.
Smith won the National Book Award for this memoir. She's recently announced she'll publish a second memoir, presumably on her life with her late husband Fred Sonic Smith of the MC5. I'm sure I'll be reading it.
Four stars
Next challenge: A book by a female author
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