Just Kids

by Patti Smith
Review by Ms. Carson, HHS Librarian

I'll be honest; I've never known Smith through her music, only her poetry and essays, which have always evoked for me the image of a vulture, an awkward hideous bird, with a magnificent wingspan and essential occupation.  You can feel it hovering overhead, its’ keen eye discerning what's edible below.  This might sound harsh, but Smith is harsh, and I hope she would appreciate the reference.  Let me explain.

It is late 1960s New York; a young, starving Smith meets Robert Mapplethorpe, a beautiful, haunted boy who reminds her of a “hippie shepherd.”  They become soul mates, lovers, comrades, and cheerleaders for each other until the end of Mapplethorpe’s life in 1989.  The fact that Robert is vain, bisexual, drug-addled, and possessive doesn’t deter her.  In fact, she is drawn to many more tragic figures throughout her life, which she gives us small glimpses of through the book. 

Smith never makes herself out to be a victim, but rather emphatically chooses a life of poverty, emotional turmoil, and chaos.  Anything else, she asserts, is “too easy.”  She devours novels, records, obscurities, anything unusual or arcane.  Her awareness of humanity’s dual nature is astute.  She is drawn like a moth to a flame by those with literary or artistic fame but not-so-secretly loathes Robert’s preoccupation with New York’s high life, his obsession with Andy Warhol in particular.  But she seems to go along for the ride.  Smith is fantastically well-read, and her pages are littered with mythical and historical references, though she doesn’t come across as pretentious or posturing.  It is all Patti Smith, all the time, whether we like it or not.

In the opening pages of Just Kids, Smith describes a scene from childhood when she is awestruck by a white swan ascending from a pond, the white of its wings on the blue of the sky a transcendental touchstone for Smith’s life, like Joan of Arc’s spiritual visions.  She is continuously drawn to stunning complicated things, like Robert or a beat-up velvet-black Gibson, but herself is more of a belle laide, and works hard to be who she wants to become.  The book is our peek into this process and her essential pairing with Robert as her caregiver, charge and muse.  It is a complicated, enthralling journey, richly told, and leaves us wanting to know the next chapter of Smith’s life.