a book
Just Kids
Patti Smith · 2010 · 320 pages
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.
recommended by 16 people
sourced from public statements
Malcolm Gladwell
“I finished it in one sitting, then wept. It’s that good.”↗
Shauna Niequist
“Another day, another booklist. Today: memoir—I loooooooove memoirs. As ever, please reply with your favorites so we can all add them to our reading lists. :) Also: Happy Friday. Phew.”↗
Dua Lipa
“It’s hard to define Patti – she is a singer, a songwriter, a poet, a painter and, of course, an author. It’s safe to say that we get something of all of these personas through this beautiful book. Prior to being at the heart of the New York City punk scene, Patti was pushing boundaries in the art world with her lover and best friend, the controversial photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Their enduring love story – which navigates both romantic and platonic love – forms the warm heart of this book and along the way, we meet artists and musicians such as Andy Warhol and Janis Joplin, literary giants including William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, to say nothing of the drag queens and socialites that pass through the doors of the Chelsea Hotel. I’d have loved to be part of such a cool era. Patti gives us the next best thing – possibly the most spellbinding account of New York in the ’70s ever written. As we witness the ascent of two legendary artists, both Robert and Patti, it’s clear that her respect and love for artistry never dims.”↗
St. Vincent
“Very special. Very recommended.”↗
Ethan Hawke
“I had the great pleasure of interviewing Patti Smith recently at the Tribeca Film Festival. If you have any doubts that the punk pioneer is also one of the greatest living American poets, this book will put them to rest.”↗
Shirley Manson
“Even if you’re not interested in music or New York, Smith writes so passionately about love and art that I think this book could be called a small masterpiece. I was 19 when an old boyfriend played me her music and she’s inspired me ever since. The first time I met her I burst into tears. I’ve never done that before but she put her hand gently on my arm, which calmed me down.”↗
Kaia Gerber
“I read Just Kids right before I moved to New York, and I think many people feel about the book the same way that I do. You’re young, you read it, and you just want to change your entire life afterwards, to live freely and be who you want. It was so inspiring, especially as I had a very different upbringing. It felt like an invitation into a world I’d never previously understood, and makes you realize that the act of making art is attainable—you can always be creating. It’s a love story that doesn’t end in the way that the love stories we were told as kids do, and it opened my eyes to all the different kinds of relationships you can have in your life and the different ways you can love.”↗
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