WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
"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
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.
