| Just Kids |  | Author: Patti Smith
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Category: Book
List Price: £18.99
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Rating:  11 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0747548404
EAN: 9780747548409
Publication Date: February 1, 2010
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Patti Smith's evocative, honest and moving coming-of-age story of her extraordinary relationship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
Patti Smith's Just Kids March 28, 2010
Robyn M. Singer (Caistor Lincolnshire England)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book arrived swiftly and safely. It is a wonderful autobiography, the best I have read in years. Sensitively and honestly written, it is obvious that Patti Smith is a world away from celebrity culture. She is not influenced by money, status or fame..how bloody refreshing. She gives perceptive insights into many of the fast movers in the late 60s and early 70s American pop and art culture. I only wish I had no short term memory so I could read it again afresh....BRILLIANT
Where friendship and art meet. February 2, 2010
Kate Willard (California)
32 out of 35 found this review helpful
This is an interesting memoir, especially for fans of Mapelthrope or Patti Smith. For the younger generation who may not be familiar with these two names. Maplethorpe was a photographer with a style that was recognizable no matter his subject (he died of AIDs in his early 40s in 1989) and lets just say he wore his homosexuality proudly (for more on mapelthorpe I recommend Mapplethorpe: A Biography). Smith is the poet singer song writer often referred to as the grandma of punk rock and an activist for many causes to this very day. In this Memoir Smith writes about her relationship with Maplethorpe in the late and early 1970s before they became famous. I thought it was fascinating to read about these two icons before they realized who the were or wanted to be. Its hard not to think of Smith as a poet rebel, guitar in hand or Mapelthorpe as the in your face artist, but Smith's book takes the reader back to when both were "Just Kids." You see Smith and Maplethorpe as young people, not always secure in who they are, groping to find their passions that were burning inside but not fully understood. In this memoir Smith also presents a picture of a New York that no longer exists, and that alone makes this wonderful reading. Not all song writers can successfully write lyrics as well as prose, Smith though has a gift with the written word that is transcendent. Heart felt and honest, like her music, I highly recommend this book. For more honest reading concerning Hollywood Icons in the 1960s I have to recommend "Misfits Country."
Kindred Spirits April 19, 2010
The Wolf (uk)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Anyone familiar with the lives and works of
Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe will know
that this story cannot have a happy ending.
Mr Mapplethorpe's death from AIDS-related illness
in 1989 drew a sad line underneath a unique
friendship. 'Just Kids' is Mme Smith's memoir of
that extraordinary relationship.
That they were kindred spirits from the start is evident
in Smith's affectionate prose. The energy that held them
together, in love and in adversity, contributed immeasurably
to their respective artistic achievements.
I had not realised how intertwined their creative paths
had been until reading this beautifully written book.
The 'High Priestess Of Punk' is a surprisingly gentle
and sensitive narrator. Starting with tender and vivid
reflections of her childhood in Pennsylvania and New Jersey
we quickly see that she will not linger there for long.
That she was an outsider (albeit a somewhat timid one)
from the start made her eventual pilgrimage to the dark
beating heart of culture in New York City inevitable.
She and Mapplethorpe fell into each others lives as much by
chance as by design. The descriptions of their early struggles
to establish a place for their art are unsentimentally drawn.
Her tales from the bowels of the Hotel Chelsea and accounts of
the brutal pecking order of bohemian wannabes at clubs like
Max's Kansas City are littered with the names of iconic
characters from this colourful period of the city's history.
It is as much a story of a time and place as it is an
excavation of her own emotional and creative trajectory.
That each of them eventually found their place (she in the
world of rock and roll and he in the photographer's studio)
would perhaps not have happened in quite the same way had
their mutual dependency, support, encouragement and love
not had the chance to flourish in those heady early years.
That their lives eventually moved in different directions
did not diminish the intensity and importance of their
primary and enduring attachment to one another.
'Just Kids' is a grown-up tale of two souls in search of meaning.
Highly Recommended.
Patti Smith magic August 16, 2010
Flippard
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For anyone like me, who is young, confused and worried about the future, this book basically tells you "it's all gonna be fine". For anyone who is older and done with being worried and confused about the future, it tells you that there is little point in regretting what has been done in the past.
Its basically Patti Smith magic from the first page to the very last.
just beautiful August 25, 2010
Irini Kosmo
Beautifully written and moving account of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe's relationship. It's clear that Patti Smith thought about every element of this: the font, the photographs, the layout, as well as the poetry of it. Even if you know nothing about either of them (which my partner didn't until I urged him to give it a go) you will be touched by the hopes and dreams of these two 'kids'.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
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