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Original Essays | September 9, 2013
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More copies of this ISBNJust Kidsby Patti Smith
AwardsStaff Pick
In her memoir Just Kids, Smith chronicles her lifelong friendship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe. A gifted wordsmith, she's vividly observant and sometimes painfully self-aware, with a voice possessed not only of yearning but also of experience. Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments: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. Review:"A story of art, identity, devotion, discovery, and love, the book is [Smith's] first prose work...[it] conjures up the passionate collaboration — as lovers, friends, soul mates, and creators — that she and Mapplethorpe embarked on from the summer they met in Brooklyn in 1967." Elle
Review:"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
Review:"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
Review:"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
Review:"[Just Kids] offers a revealing account of the fears and insecurities harbored by even the most incendiary artists, as well as their capacity for reverence and tenderness." USA Today
Review:"Smith's writing about her early days with Mapplethorpe is fervid and incantatory but never falls into incoherence." The Oregonian
Review:"A spellbinding portrait of bohemian New York in the late 1960s and early '70s." New York Times Book Review, Paperback Row
Review:"A revelation. In a spellbinding memoir as notable for its restraint as for its lucidity, its wit as well as its grace, Smith tells the story of how she and Robert Mapplethorpe found each other...beautifully crafted, vivid, and indelible." Booklist
Review:"Deeply affecting...a vivid portrayal of a bygone New York that could support a countercultural artistic firmament...the power of this book comes from [Smith's] ability to recall lucid memories in straightforward prose." BookForum
Review:"Remarkable, evocative... Just Kids is more than just a gift to [Smith's] ex-lover; it's a gift to everyone who has ever been touched by their art, and to everyone who's ever been in love. Like the best of Smith's music and Mapplethorpe's art, this book is haunting and unforgettable." NPR Boston
Review:"Sometimes there is justice in the world. That was my first thought when I heard that Patti Smith had won the National Book Award this fall for her glorious memoir, Just Kids." Maureen Corrigan's favorite books of 2010, NPR's Fresh Air
Review:"[Just Kids] reminds us that innocence, utopian ideals, beauty and revolt are enlightenment's guiding stars in the human journey. Her book recalls, without blinking or faltering, a collective memory — one that guides us through the present and into the future." Michael Stipe, Time magazine
Review:"Composed of incandescent sentences more revelatory than anything from Patti Smith's poems or songs, her romantic memoir also reveals what blunt narrative instruments the earlier career bios of her and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe have been." Village Voice, Best Books of 2010 Round-Up
Review:"A shockingly beautiful book...a classic, a romance about becoming an artist in the city, written in a spare, simple style of boyhood memoirs like Frank Conroy's Stop Time." New York Magazine
Review:"A heartbreakingly sweet recollection of just that sort of vanished Bohemian life....Just as [Smith] stands out as an artiste in a movement based on collectivism, her singular voice gleams among rock memoirs as a work of literature." Boston Globe
Review:"To read Just Kids is to be struck by how powerfully the two, especially Smith, believed in the power of art....Despite her music's angry clamor, despite his sometimes revolting images, Smith and Mapplethorpe retain, in her telling, a primal, childlike innocence." Dallas Morning News
Review:"One of the best books ever written on becoming an artist....Jesus may have died for somebody's sins, but Patti Smith lives and writes and sings for all of us." Washington Post
Review:"One of the best things I've ever read in my life." Don Imus
Review:"Terrifically evocative and splendidly titled...the most spellbinding and diverting portrait of funky-but-chic New York in the late '60s and early '70s that any alumnus has committed to print....This enchanting book is a reminder that not all youthful vainglory is silly; sometimes it's preparation." New York Times Book Review
Review:"More than 30 years after its release, Horses still has the power to shock and inspire young musicians to express themselves with unbridled passion. Now she brings the same raw, lyrical quality to her first book of prose." Clive Davis, Vanity Fair
Review:"Patti Smith's memoir of her youth with Robert Mapplethorpe testifies to a rare and ferocious innocence....Just Kids is a book utterly lacking in irony or sophisticated cynicism." Salon.com
Review:"Just Kids shows how Smith integrated the romance of her twenty-year friendship with Mapplethorpe with her historical preoccupations, elevating them to an almost sacred status. The past, for Smith, has always driven her life forward. If only we could all be so free-spirited." The Rumpus
Review:"A moving portrait of the artist as a young woman, and a vibrant profile of Smith's onetime boyfriend and lifelong muse, Robert Mapplethorpe, who died of AIDS in 1989....Just Kids is ultimately a wonderful portal into the dawn of Smith's art." Los Angeles Times
Synopsis:Smith's evocative, honest, and moving coming-of-age story reveals her extraordinary relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe. Part romance, part elegy, Just Kids is about friendship in the truest sense, and the artist's calling.
Synopsis: Th e talent. Th e charisma. The videos. From their 1981 hit and#147;Planet Earthand#8221; to their latest number-one album, All You Need Is Now, John Taylor and Duran Duran have enchanted audiences around the world. Itand#8217;s been a wild ride, andand#151;for John in particularand#151;dangerous. John recounts the story of the bandand#8217;s formation, their massive success, and his journey to the brink of self-destruction. Told with humor, honestyand#151;and packed with exclusive picturesand#151;In the Pleasure Groove is an irresistible rock-and-roll portrait of a band whose popularity has never been stronger. Synopsis:In Just Kids, Patti Smiths first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days of About the AuthorPatti Smith is a writer, performer, and visual artist. She gained recognition in the 1970s for her revolutionary mergence of poetry and rock. Her seminal album Horses, bearing Robert Mapplethorpes renowned photograph, has been hailed as one of the top 100 albums of all time. Her books include Witt, Babel, Woolgathering, The Coral Sea, and Auguries of Innocence. In 2005, the French Ministry of Culture awarded Smith the prestigious title of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, the highest honor awarded to an artist by the French Republic. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. Smith married the late Fred Sonic Smith in Detroit in 1980. They had a son, Jackson, and a daughter, Jesse. Smith resides in New York City.
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