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)

Portrait of Two Artists as Just Young Kids

"Nothing is finished until you see it."
- Robert Mapplethorpe, quoted in 'Just Kids'

"Who can know the heart of youth but youth itself?"
- Patti Smith, 'Just Kids'

A memoir of images, people, and hopes 'Just Kids' explores the funky relationship of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe as they began their unique relationship and struggled to emerge as artists. The power of this memoir is the way Patti Smith works the words to create a canvas broad enough to catch both Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith as they grow and flower.

I fell in love with Patti Smith and her music in college twenty+ years ago and loved her raw power and openness. Through her I discovered Mapplethorpe and although I never quite got excited by his more iconic S&M photos, I loved his flowers and his boldness. I knew their myth, but this book gave a greater glimpse into their relationship and the galaxy of their friends. I never knew about her relationship with Sam Smith, Allen Lanier, etc., or her friendship with many of the Chelsea Hotel crowd, beat poets, etc. The book is a great exploration of friendship, love and art. It is also a great tribute to the role of mentors, art benefactors, work, hope, and no small amount of luck in the creation of great art.

Patti Smith reading Patti Smith is an amazing thing. Her audiobook isn't quite performance, but with her distinctive voice giving her words wings, amazing things happen.

Beautiful telling of a life like no other

Patti Smith pours out the story of her life with humility, peace and quiet resolve. She starts with the shame and humiliation of getting pregnant in her teens and giving the baby up for adoption in the early 60s. With hardly a dime to her name she moves to New York City where she meets and enters into a loving relationship with the famous photographer, Robert Maplethorpe. Together they supported one another in all their artful endeavors even after he left her for the love of a man. Eventually they moved to the Chelsea Hotel where they associated with well-known poets and authors and artists and musicians of the late 60s and early 70s. Patti's career took off, she married and had two children, and Robert continued his love of photography. Patti took care of him when he contracted AIDS and eventually died. Their love for one another was so extraordinary, so caring for one another, so mutually supportive, so non-judgmental, so void of jealousy and mistrust. I am in awe of Patti's talents as a singer and as a poet and artist, but most of all I admire her humility and honesty. I've always been fascinated with Maplethorpe's work and have a book of some of his photography, mostly of women, and Patti rounds out the line-up of well-known women in the last four photos. She was and is more beautiful than she knows. A few days ago I read where she visited the Occupy Wall Street camp to donate some of her books. While walking among the protesters she came upon an old woman to whom she gave her socks and boots.

And to think I almost took a pass on this one...

I love the honesty and mispronunciations of Patti's reading. Here she is -a brilliant, insightful intellect with the Jersey vernacular keeping her human. The book begins slow, almost ho-hum like light snowflakes that swirl around until it becomes ground cover, then the whole snowball effect takes place and by the end of the book you'll feel like you just rode an avalanche. It's an artistic, culturally penetrating, honest and most importantly- heartfelt love story.

I love books that surprise me

I just finished reading Just Kids and I have been touched. The story is fluid and full and the way that Patti Smith looks back on her life, her values changing over time, her art but mostly the chronicle of her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe is inspiring. What comes across is a wonderful poignant love story of a deep, deep friendship. You also get a completely different view of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe than what the press would have us believe. This is the part that touched and surprised me. I still gravitate almost instantly to fiction but this was a wonderful ride.

Just Kids

Well, thank you Patti Smith!!! I do think that we might have met way back then. Yes, this is a true love story and a true love story of the time. What a time that was! Thank you again for telling it. I will never forget that time. It did deeply impact those of us that moved to NYC (and actually did live in a loft.... without the benefit of a grocery store, pharmacy,or heat )

Thanks, I did get much subsistence from Max's, that is for sure. That was my first time to eat Buffalo Wings. They were good. Wow, I loved this book and that it must have come from your journals.

Thanks

Deep inspiration of commitment

...commitment to self expression, partnerships, and unconditional love. Beautiful voice both physically and context. Absolutely and wonderfully rich and inspirational. Thank you Patti. Thank you Robert.

Sensitive and Moving

What did you love best about Just Kids?

I am glad that she read it. At first when I heard it I thought she was a little flat. But now I understand that no one else could have read this book the way she has. That she is part of the story itself and to hear her is an ingredient that was necessary. It is not a thriller it is a human experience.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

There was a quote that moved me. ..."I learned from him that often contradiction are the clearest way to truth."

Any additional comments?

This book will make you want to do art. It will make you want ot support those that make art and be part of a creative community.

Totally inspiring.

An incredible love story blooms around early punk

First of all what this book is not. It is not a history of punk, it will give only the briefest insights into the amazing Musical career of Patti Smith.

What the book is:
An incredible love story of two starving artists at the dawn of the New York Punk scene. The descriptions of the hotel,bars,bookstores and people remind me of the Beats. If you like Kerouac, Patti Smith's poetic remembrances seem to be channeling the beats.

A special mention should made of Patti's reading style. The read has real emotions at times, it makes the material so much more accessible than if someone else did the read.

It would tell you everything you want to know about punk, but it an indispensable book if you love punk.

Amazing

This book just made me cry so hard. Beautiful story about love, friendship, art, and loyalty.

Yes, I would recommend!

I love this book and I love that Patti narrates. Something special about curling up with my Chilli cat as a favorite rock star poet tells me stories of her life and the loves of her life. I was not bored. Loved it! Thank you Patti <3