Just Kids

By: Patti Smith

Narrated by: Patti Smith

Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

National Book Award, Nonfiction, 2010

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 42nd 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 60s and 70s 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.

©2010 Patti Smith (P)2011 Patti Smith

Critic reviews

“Smith’s beautifully crafted love letter to her friend Robert Mapplethorpe functions as a memento mori of a relationship fueled by passion for art and writing. Her elegant eulogy lays bare the chaos and the creativity so embedded in that earlier time and in Mapplethorpe’s life and work.” ( Publishers Weekly, Top Ten Books of the Year)

“The most enchantingly evocative memoir of funky-but-chic New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s that any alumnus has yet committed to print.” (Janet Maslin's top 10 books of 2010, New York Times)

“Reading rocker Smith’s account of her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, it’s hard not to believe in fate. How else to explain the chance encounter that threw them together, allowing both to blossom? Quirky and spellbinding.” ( People, Top 10 Books of 2010)

An artist’s bond

Riveting report in first person narration of Patti Smith’s lifelong friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe. “Just Kids” is the title of one if her poems for Robert. The title symbolizes the challenges of a generation that experimented with freedom in new ways. Their legacy is crucial to understand our world. This is a book for everyone. Thank you, Patti Smith, for your courage and your beautiful story—holding hands with God.

Splendid

Thank you Patti Smith.
This book is a must read.
Put this put on your favorite list

surprisingly interesting!

Not knowing much at all about either characters I was drawn in after about 20 minutes. I didn't appreciate Patti's slow reading at first, but I soon grew to love the mesmerizing quality of her and Robert's story told in her voice. A truly interesting look into the lives of two very young "artists" following their creative talents and falling in love.

Patti reads me to awakened

I have long loved and admired Patti smith for her honesty and ferocity and generosity of self and spirit. To hear this story told in her voice is like manna.

The heart of love between 2 unique artists

Two non-conforming artists, friends/lovers hold each other up as they develop their unforgettable art forms through voice and image and story. Patti’s wove a spell as she invited us into all the sensory details and emotions and struggles she experienced as she and Robert Mapplethorpe always true to their souls, rose from being “just kids” to famous and successful creatives in the NY art world and beyond. I related because I too was on my own and studying art in NYC during the summer of love and also wrote a memoir, Rebellion, 1967. A wild era!

I didn’t know how much I needed this!

Smith is an underrated author and artist with the kindest of hearts. This story is a raw, honest recollection by Smith of her humble beginnings & deep connection with Robert Maplethorpe. It’s also an interesting & honest account of the NYC artist and music scene in the late 1960s through the 1980s. I hadn’t realized just how amazing she is. I liked her before but now I love her. Hearing it in her voice greatly deepens the effect of her story. I highly recommend to anyone who loves her, art from those eras, NYC, or just want to hear a tender and heartfelt tale of two humans whose connection was/is one in a million.

What a beautiful tribute to two true artists.

This book opened my eyes to a whole new art scene and world I never knew about. A beautiful ode to New York City too. Patti Smith is a born poet and her descriptions of the most mundane things make me want to take in every thread of the world with her artistic eye and love for language. I have always believed our soulmate is not necessarily the person we end up marrying, but the one who turns us inside out and makes us question all the big things. Robert and Patti surely did both of those in their short time together. Can’t wait to read Patti’s poetry now and M Train. Thank you!

I’m just a kid too

I sit here tonight two breaths from tears
Wishing I could describe how this book made me feel.
I so dearly relate to the challenges and joy as an artist.
Thank you Patti for writing and reading your life to me.
I don’t think you will ever know how your story has inspired me…
Thx UR

Her narrative and commitment to life art and Mapplethorpe through it all- a story of a true friendship

I sped up reading by .5 bit less melancholy - what I font like is that I need to write 16 words before complete

Love Endeared

This title has brought part of me back to life. The love that blossomed and endeared through so many experiences is awe-inspiring. Inspiring for the very different journey I find myself on. Love has many forms of endearment. This might have just become my favorite book of them all. Very well done audiobook. To feel the artist's words of her own story delivers powerful and reverberating emotions that will last in my heart for years to come.