Review: Just Kids by Patti Smith

In 1966, Patti Smith moved to New York City carrying only her dreams of becoming an artist. On that very first day, a chance meeting with a sweet boy named Robert Mapplethorpe would be one of the most significant and pivotal points of her life.

Sharing an aesthetic sense, the two would be spiritually and sometimes physically bonded until Mapplethorpe's death in 1986. Patti Smith's award-winning Just Kids takes an unflinching look at the couple's life in the city during the heady and dangerous years of late 1960s into the 1970s.

Smith holds nothing back when she recalls what was required to survive: from sleeping in the park to cruising restaurants for handouts. When Smith scored a job in the Scribner's bookstore, they were able to afford a room, and Mapplethorpe supplemented their income with odd jobs and hustling, when necessary. The two supported each other emotionally and financially, never losing focus on their art--poetry, music, photography, drawing, painting, installations, and performing.

Whether in Brooklyn or Manhattan, on Delancy Street or MacDougal, crashing on a sofa or in the Chelsea Hotel, Smith and Mapplethorpe often found themselves in just the right place at just the right time to cross paths with some of the greatest artists of their time, including Andy Warhol, Sam Shepard, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. Just Kids, however, is not a vehicle for Smith to name-drop; she unhesitatingly admits her lack of self-assurance and never resorts to exaggerating the depth of her relationships with these icons during her formative years.

The perspective is Smith's personal experiences, recollections, and reactions, but the focus is solidly on photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Through Just Kids, Smith fulfills her promise to her soul mate to write their story. A surprisingly tender and moving memoir of a generation and of two kids determined to see their dreams come true.

I listened to the unabridged audio edition (Harper Audio) read by Patti Smith; my review of that edition will be published by AudioFile magazine (in print and/or on their website).

Just Kids is a National Book Award Winner and was an Indie Next pick for February 2010. Smith recently won the prestigious 2011 Polar Music Prize for "demonstrat[ing] how much rock 'n' roll there is in poetry and how much poetry there is in rock 'n' roll."

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Published by HarperCollins / Ecco, 2010
ISBN-13: 9780060936228 YTD: 73
Source: Review (see review policy)
Rating: B+
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