Just Kids

Patti Smith

Harper Collins, Apr 20, 2010 - Literary Criticism - 320 pages

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

It was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion, and initiation.

Patti Smith would evolve as a poet and performer, and Robert Mapplethorpe would direct his highly provocative style toward photography. Bound in innocence and enthusiasm, they traversed the city from Coney Island to Forty-Second Street, and eventually to the celebrated round table of Max’s Kansas City, where the Andy Warhol contingent held court. In 1969, the pair set up camp at the Hotel Chelsea and soon entered a community of the famous and infamous, the influential artists of the day and the colorful fringe. It was a time of heightened awareness, when the worlds of poetry, rock and roll, art, and sexual politics were colliding and exploding. In this milieu, two kids made a pact to take care of each other. Scrappy, romantic, committed to create, and fueled by their mutual dreams and drives, they would prod and provide for one another during the hungry years.

Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. It serves as a salute to New York City during the late sixties and seventies and to its rich and poor, its hustlers and hellions. A true fable, it is a portrait of two young artists’ ascent, a prelude to fame.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - TheDivineOomba - LibraryThing

This is a beautiful book, a lovingly told story about a best friend, soulmate, someone who is your other half. Simply told but written with deep insight, this book is as much about Patti figuring out ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - ChrisCoDC - LibraryThing

Lives up to the hype. A remarkable story, full of love, heartache, and pain, exquisitely told. I was so glad I finally got around to reading this.

About the author

Patti Smith is a writer, performer, and visual artist. She gained recognition in the 1970s for her revolutionary mergence of poetry and rock and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. Her seminal album Horses, bearing Robert Mapplethorpe’s renowned photograph, hasbeen hailed as one of the top one hundred albums of all time. Her books include M Train, Witt, Babel, Woolgathering, The Coral Sea, and Auguries of Innocence.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Just Kids
• Author: Patti Smith
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Harper Collins, 2010
• ISBN: 0062008447, 9780062008442
• Length: 320 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / General; Biography & Autobiography / Music; Biography & Autobiography / Women; History / United States / 20th Century; Literary Criticism / Women Authors