What is ‘Just Kids’ about? 

Beautifully written and published in January 2010, ‘Just Kids’ is singer-songwriter and poet Patti Smith’s memoir, a coming-of-age story, and a prologue to fame depicting two dedicated artists’ ascent.  

It documents her and renowned photographer Robert Mapplethorpe’s relationship and lifelong friendship, and the many trials and tribulations that come with being a struggling artist – hunger, joblessness and ambition. 

Furthermore, in a mesmerising portrait, it serves as a salute to the epochal and ever-changing late sixties and early seventies New York City, the pair moving though many places like the Hotel Chelsea, Brooklyn, Max’s Kansas City, Coney Island and Scribner’s Bookstore, encountering and developing friendships with many prolific artists of the time, such as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Allen Ginsberg, Sandy Daley, William Burroughs and Andy Warhol. 

About the author: 

Patti Smith is a writer, artist, singer-songwriter and poet, known as the ‘punk poet laureate’ of 1970s rock and roll.  

She was born in Chicago on the 30th of December 1946 and grew up with a great passion for reading and art, with a lively imagination. 

Patti rose to fame in the 1970s for her music, revolutionary in combining poetry with rock, and has released 12 albums over the years - in 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

What was my response? 

I read this book in the summer, loved it and now it's one of my favourites. 

The memoir is extremely well written; with passages like prose, Patti's love for Robert, her friends, her art and New York City itself shines through.

Depicting the new adventure that was rock and roll, and the changing dynamics of politics and art, in the early '70s, 'Just Kids' sheds an an effervescent light on a time that I would not know much about otherwise, mentioning significant events like the Kent State Massacre and Martin Luther King's assassination, making it an enlightening read. 

It is very atmospheric and generates a feeling of passion and hope.

I would recommend the book to anyone that is interested in art, music, love, and late '60s/early '70s New York.

A Few Favourite Quotes: 

  • 'It will not fall away. Man cannot judge it. For art sings of God, and ultimately belongs to him.'
  • 'I thought to myself that he contained a whole universe that I had yet to know.'
  • 'It was a good day to arrive in New York City. No one expected me. Everything awaited me.'
  • 'Later he would say that the Church led him to God, and LSD led him to the universe.'
  • 'I stand naked when I draw. God holds my hand and we sing together.'
  • '"Nobody sees as we do, Patti," he said again. Whenever he said things like that, for a magical space of time, it was as if we were the only two people in the world.'
  • ‘Laughter. An essential ingredient for survival. And we laughed a lot.’ 
  • 'It was a magic period, and Harry believed in magic.'
  • 'Who can know the heart of youth but youth itself?'
  • 'We went our separate ways, but within walking distance of one another.'
  • 'Robert was ever in my consciousness; the blue star in the constellation of my personal cosmology.'
  • '"Patti, did art get us?"... Perhaps it did, but no one could regret that. Only a fool would regret being had by art; or a saint.'