Reviews
“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.�, 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., 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., 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., 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., 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., 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., In the end, [JUST KIDS is] not just an ode to Mapplethorpe, but a love letter to New York City's '70s art scene itself., 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., 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., A remarkable book --sweet and charming and many other words you wouldn't expect to apply to a punk-rock icon., 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., 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., 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., [A] beautifully crafted love letter to [Robert Mapplethorpe]...Smith transports readers to what seemed like halcyon days for art and artists in New York...[a] tender and tough memoir...[an] elegant eulogy., Smith's writing about her early days with Mapplethorpe is fervid and incantatory but never falls into incoherence., An utterly charming, captivating, intimate portrait of a late 1960s and early 1970s period of intense artistic ferment in downtown Manhattan significantly shaped and keenly observed by rock firebrand Smith., 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., 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., 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., [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.
