Patti Smith's Just Kids: An Anthology of Stories for Young Readers

Philip Newey: This is an amazing journey into the hearts, minds and souls of two creative giants. It's also a journey weaving it's way through the New York of the late 1960s/early 1970s, an amazing era reminiscent of Paris in the 1920s. I was just 13 in 1970, and too young, really, to know or understand this world. Yet I always suspected something ... Thanks to Patti I feel that I have heard an echo and glimpsed a shadow of that world, Robert and Patti's world.

Australia on Oct 03, 2023

Jess Bryans: Amazing book!

United Kingdom on Oct 01, 2023

Miguel ToledoMiguel Toledo: El libro llegó bien. Solo que no entiendo, porque trae este detalle si se supone que son fabricados en serie o algo así. Las hojas vienen un tanto mal cortadas, como si hubiera sido hecho a mano. De allí en fuera, todo bien como tal. Buen libro. Solo la hechura

Mexico on Sep 17, 2023

Alex: Patti Smith forjó una reputación formidable gracias a su actuación en el escenario + frente a la cámara cada vez que daba entrevistas. Pero detrás del grito rebelde yacía una persona de increíble calidez, buen humor + generosidad de espíritu.

A medida que crece en la "contracultura" escuchamos todo sobre sus aventuras, encuentros + influencias formativas. A los fanáticos del rock les encantará sus recuerdos de charlar con Jimi Hendrix pocos días antes de su muerte o la noche que pasó consolando a Janis Joplin cuando otro hombre la decepcionó. Si adoras a los escritores beatnick entonces te intriga aprender que uno de ellos una vez la confundió con un niño "bonito" + trató de recogerla!

Pero si Just Kids tiene algo que enseñarnos es seguramente que el Amor viene en muchas formas diferentes. Y en ese momento el Amor de su joven Vida era Robert Mapplethorpe. Sólo más tarde descubrió que era homosexual+ muy dispuesto a vender su cuerpo a hombres por sexo. Pero luego desarrolló un interés en Bondage + sadomasoquismo que él sostuvo que era totalmente artístico, pero la pobre Patti tenía sus dudas. Sin embargo, el vínculo (! ) entre ellos...

Spain on Jan 03, 2022

Dorian GrayDorian Gray: Patti Smith forged a formidable reputation from her performance on stage + in front of the camera whenever she gave interviews. But behind the Rebel Yell lay a person of incredible warmth , good humour + generosity of spirit.

As she grows up in the counter-culture we hear all about her adventures , encounters + formative influences. Rock fans will love her memories of chatting with Jimi Hendrix just days before his death or the night she spent consoling Janis Joplin when yet another man let her down. If you adore the beatnick writers then you'll be intrigued to learn one of them once mistook her for a pretty boy + tried to pick her up !

But if Just Kids has anything to teach us it is surely that Love comes in many different forms. And at that time the Love of her young Life was Robert Mapplethorpe. Only later did she discover he was homosexual + quite willing to sell his body to men for sex. But he then developed an interest in Bondage + Sadomasochism which he maintained was entirely artistic but poor Patti had her doubts. Yet the bond ( ! ) between them remained as strong as ever. Their Love had undergone a strange alchemical change : now they were like brother +...

United Kingdom on Aug 19, 2018

Stephen Siciliano: "Just Kids" is just another Jersey-factory-girl-runs-to-New York-and-hooks-up-with-bisexual-art-pornographer-on-her-way-to-rock 'n roll-stardom story.

It details Patti Smith's evolution from tentative neophyte to rock-and-roll poetess, woven through with her unique relationship to Robert Mapplethorpe, a triumphant artist whose own untimely ending, alas, makes for engaging literature.

The place is lower Manhattan. The time-period is the mid-1960s and 1970s when Mapplethorpe and Smith are, age-wise, a "beat behind" the reigning princes and princesses of rock's golden age.

As such, she is influenced artistically by the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, and Janice Joplin for whom she pens poetic cycles while absorbing political pointers from Jean-Luc Goddard's "One-Plus-One."

The life-as-artist anecdotes have a familiar ring: hunger, rejection, perseverance, and a healthy amount of name dropping.

Smith has affairs with Jim Carroll, Sam Sheppard and a guy from Blue Oyster Cult. Allen Ginsberg mistakes her for a pretty boy in the Automat, and Gregory Corso imparts stern advice to the budding scribe inside her.

They are...

United States on Apr 05, 2010

Ray O'Keefe Cruitt: Have you ever awoken from a dream and yearned to tell someone close by all the seemingly concrete details that made so much sense in unconsciousness, but upon consciousness are rendered incomprehensible, even worse, banal when spoken? Or, have you ever had to retreat midway through a story about how interesting a scene or city was to have experienced with that sad qualifying statement: "Well, I guess you had to be there," those blank stares and yawns from listeners way too much to bear?

Well, I have. Patti Smith has not, at least not in the case of her exquisite new memoir, "Just Kids". The difference between me and her is that my attempts to transcend mere description when writing about my past always deflates either into senseless name dropping or banal "my summer vacation essay" style explorations, whereas Smith, in "Just Kids," transcends all the pitfalls of the memoir genre and tells a poignant tale of two struggling artists in the late 60s - 70s in New York City--her and Robert Mapplethorpe--without sounding pompous, pretentious or boring.

It's always the inexplicable that's most interesting. If you strip away what's ineffable about the spirit of a defining...

United States on Feb 17, 2010