Just Kids ( Certified Reading)

Just Kids is a luminous coming-of-age memoir that reads less as a record of events and more as an invocation of a vanished world where art, hunger and love were deeply intertwined. At its center is the relationship between Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe - a bond that defies simple labels of romance or friendship, taking on an almost mythic emotional force. What elevates the memoir beyond a conventional artist’s life story is its vivid evocation of an era when art was not merely a pursuit but a necessity. New York emerges as a restless, unpredictable presence-simultaneously generous and indifferent—where chance encounters in hotel rooms, galleries and cramped apartments quietly alter the course of lives. The city’s cultural energy, from the fading echoes of Beat literature to the rise of punk, forms the backdrop against which Smith and Mapplethorpe gradually discover themselves as artists. Their early years are marked by poverty, yet deprivation is portrayed not as misery but as a force that deepens their commitment to both art and each other. Shared rooms, borrowed meals and constant uncertainty are rendered with remarkable clarity, while the artists, musicians and poets who drift through their lives reinforce the sense of a city in perpetual transformation. The memoir’s power also lies in its emotional restraint. Even in moments of separation and loss, Smith’s prose remains composed, allowing feeling to emerge through precise observation rather than sentimentality. The evolution of Patti and Robert from inseparable companions to distinct artistic figures unfolds with quiet inevitability. Ultimately, Just Kids is not only a portrait of two artists but a meditation on creativity, devotion and the sacrifices demanded by both. It leaves behind a lingering feeling, like a half-remembered song whose melody remains long after the final note has faded.

Only if I could live with all the creative people…. nonetheless the whole journey has been beautifully told

10/10 book

Just Kids”, what an incredibly written memoir, so touching and meticulously articulated that Patti take us to the life of an young helpless teen girl, vulnerable to the vagaries of life and her serendipitous acquaintance with an young man at a very testing time of her life and later befriending him for a lifetime. Their living together and how she got groomed and evolved to became a fantastic artist with all the events unfolding candidly before our eyes and the readers themselves integrated into the life of Patti and flow along her like a fallen leaf floating with the turbulent currents. Her sorrow, ecstasy, vulnerability, uncertainty all are palpable as if she is living in our time, between us. Her extraordinarily beautiful and soulful relationship with Robert was at times heart wrenching and many a time exhilarating too but quite unforgettable and delightfully poetic. It also gives an insightful account of all those great souls, stalwarts in their own field of arts and at the same time so humane and unselfish to hold Patty in her testing times and rose her to the field of arts is nothing but the greatness of those generation of men and women. Just Kids is a delightful read.

It is not often that I read a book which compels me to sit with my thoughts for hours before compiling them into a review. ‘Just Kids’ was one of them. It’s hard to summarize and pin-point it to a genre, much like Patti Smith’s career herself. It’s a promise fulfilled to a friend who served as an axis of comfort and stability in an uncertain time. It’s an homage to New York in the 60s and 70s. It’s a reflection on the life of an artist before fame. What makes this book stand out is Patti’s prose. She is a gifted writer and someone who is unassuming. For a memoir, she was able to strike the right chord – introspective, candid, sharing her shortcomings without justifying too much, and being honest enough to show the life of a struggling artist without glamorizing it.

nice

Un libro stupendo, una scrittura super piacevole. Lo leggerei mille volte.

Das Buch ist eine Zeitreise in das New York der 70er Jahre und lässt einen so schnell nicht mehr los. Patti Smith schreibt, mit einer Wortgewandtheit die ihres gleichen sucht. Sie erzählt langsam und dennoch hat mich die Geschichte sofort in ihren Bann gezogen. Das Buch ist einfach wunderschön und trifft mitten ins Herz. Gespickt mit unzähligen Anspielungen und geschmückt durch bildhafte Formulierungen macht es einfach nur Spaß. Es lädt wirklich zum Träumen ein.

Really beautiful and touching book, which greatly exceeded my expectations. This isn't a book about Patti Smith, or her music, nor even about Robert Mapplethorpe, though obviously there's plenty about them and their work between these covers. It's a book about their relationship as artists and lovers as an entity in its own right, and as such it's one of the finest love stories you will ever read - a mostly platonic story for sure, but no less powerful for all that. You put the book down feeling that he was surely her 'other half', and she his - that they made one another whole, as people as well as artists. The writing is never sentimental, even when it's dealing with Robert's untimely end - it's crisp and hard-edged, but never prosaic, and the more powerful for it. Her recollections of tough times in New York around the turn of the 70s and growing up in places like the Chelsea Hotel and CBGBs before they became tourist destinations are captured with an artist's clear eye and are a valuable addition in themselves to other memoirs of those times. But it's the story of Robert and Patti that rightly dominates. A very moving, life-affirming memoir, and highly recommended to anyone with even a passing interest in their work and those times.

so so so so good

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