New York Times Best Seller
From the National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids and M
Train, a profound, beautifully realized memoir in which dreams and
reality are vividly woven into a tapestry of one transformative year.
Following a run of New Year's concerts at San Francisco's legendary
Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz,
about to embark on a year of solitary wandering. Unfettered by logic or
time, she draws us into her private wonderland with no design, yet
heeding signs--including a talking sign that looms above her, prodding
and sparring like the Cheshire Cat. In February, a surreal lunar year
begins, bringing with it unexpected turns, heightened mischief, and
inescapable sorrow. In a stranger's words, Anything is possible: after
all, it's the Year of the Monkey. For Smith--inveterately curious,
always exploring, tracking thoughts, writing--the year evolves as one of
reckoning with the changes in life's gyre: with loss, aging, and a
dramatic shift in the political landscape of America.
Smith melds the western landscape with her own dreamscape. Taking us
from California to the Arizona desert; to a Kentucky farm as the
amanuensis of a friend in crisis; to the hospital room of a valued
mentor; and by turns to remembered and imagined places, this haunting
memoir blends fact and fiction with poetic mastery. The unexpected
happens; grief and disillusionment set in. But as Smith heads toward a
new decade in her own life, she offers this balm to the reader: her
wisdom, wit, gimlet eye, and above all, a rugged hope for a better
world.
Riveting, elegant, often humorous, illustrated by Smith's signature
Polaroids, Year of the Monkey is a moving and original work, a
touchstone for our turbulent times.
