Patti Smith is the legendary American writer, performer, and artist whose books include Just Kids (and the Just Kids Illustrated edition), The Coral Sea, M Train, Witt, Babel,Woolgathering, and Auguries of Innocence. Her seminal album “Horses” has been hailed as one of the top one hundred albums of all time.
In the award-winning Just Kids, Smith offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel in the late sixties and seventies. An honest and moving story of youth and friendship, Smith brings the same unique, lyrical quality to Just Kids as she has to the rest of her formidable body of work. Just Kids serves as a salute to New York City during the late sixties and seventies and to its rich and poor, its hustlers and hellions. A true fable, it is a portrait of two young artists’ ascent, a prelude to fame.
Published by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, Just Kids is a New York Times bestseller and the winner of numerous accolades including the National Book Award for Nonfiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award finalist (Autobiography/ Memoir), Publishers Weekly’s Top 10 Best Books, ALA Notable Book, Los Angeles TimesBook Prize finalist, and People magazine’s Top Ten books of 2010.
“When Robert Mapplethorpe and I stepped from Brooklyn to Manhattan, a half century ago, we were empty-handed yet possessed a vision of how we wished to evolve as artists and human beings,” said Patti Smith. “New York was the city that welcomed and formed us, was emblematic of our struggles and successes. It is moving to imagine that our story will represent, through One Book, One New York, the countless stories of those who come to our diverse and complex city, with dreams of their own. Robert would be as happy as I am to achieve this recognition, especially grateful that the book has been chosen by the same readers for whom it was written.”
Read Less
