Description:
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 Fourty-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.
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 artist’ ascent, a prelude to fame and drives, they would prod and provide for one another during the hungry years.
Review:
I’m adding “Just Kids” by Patti Smith to my list of ‘Favorite Books EVER.” Why:
1. Patti Smith is an amazing icon, known as the Mother of Rock and Grandmom of Punk.
This book begins before she went to New York with a suitcase and dreams in her pocket. She spends her first summer in NYC sleeping in parks. Eventually she meets Robert Mapplethorpe– the muse of this book– and they team up together as friends, lovers, and partners.
Patti runs into an unbelievable number of famous people including Jimi Hendrix. This book is an incredible look into the origins of modern rock, and the cast that made that up.
2. Patti Smith writes as a touching memorial of Robert Mapplethorpe after his death from HIV.
At first Patti and Robert were friends, then they became lovers, and later, partners. Their relationship is really interesting as Robert comes to terms with his sexuality–what it means to want men sexually but to love a woman so strongly.
There is nothing uncomplicated about their love, but it is clearly of enormous importance to Patti Smith.
The book is filled with visual images, most of which are photographs taken by Robert.
3. Set in the turn of the sixties to the seventies, it’s remarkable how little has changed today.
Although culture began to explode with new forms of expression– rock and rock, BDSM, photography, spoken word– the context seems familiar.
Patti Smith puts into words the difficulty of being an artist in today’s world. The challenge of finding an apartment in New York, finding yourself, finding your voice when your parents would rather you find a 9 to 5. She finds the grit and the anguish lurking in the Chelsea Hotel mixed with the light of collaboration and inspiration. Robert is a social butterfly while Patti hesitates on the fringe of the
creative society that decides ‘who’s in’ because why should she have to pander to them or anyone?
It’d be no less scary today for someone to realize they are gay, or to struggle with making a niche as an artist.
4. Patti Smith is a dreamer, a poet and a wannabe musician with blocks and no idea where she is going.
Patti’s introverted, prefers free-writing spontaneity, and spends ages trying to figure out how the hell to write a song. She has only a hand full of friends even though Robert drags her to every event he goes to. That’s not her scene, she’s the quiet type.
She’s the kind of girl someone might question is really an artist until Patti found exactly the venue she needed for her talents. She had the passion, the will and the patience to get herself there when Robert was her sole support.
I really see myself and Patti Smith as in the same boat. I’m a starting writer and I definitely know how hard it is to write songs! Introverted as well, I like the way Patti sees the world.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves early Rock and Roll, poetry, photography, the Beat Generation, or the promise of New York City.
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I lived through this era in NYC, loved this book too, and, have a signed copy from Patti 😉
Nice post…
I’m so jealous. How did you pull that one off?
My cousin lives in NYC and went to one of her appearances. I also have personalized copies of “The Coral Sea” and some pics. My cousin rocks…
Oh I have this on my bookshelf, but haven’t gotten to it yet. I heard an interview with her on NPR and knew I’d have to track down the book.
dooo it, I read this in three days. Easy read and I was addicted!