Good Reads: Just Kids by Patti Smith

Patti Smith & Robert Mapplethorpe – photographed by Gerard Malanga

She is the widely-loved American singer-songwriter, reverently known as “The Godmother of Punk.” He is one of photography’s most recognized and controversial artists. Patti Smith & Robert Mapplethorpe grew to be two legends in American pop-culture. But before all that, they were…Just Kids.  

In Just Kids, Patti Smith tenderly recalls “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.” The book, Smith’s first of prose, offers an honest and poignant story of youth and friendship – that would ultimately help form two of the most intriguiging and influential figures of that area and time.

Patti Smith on the cover of Horses – photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe

Read this insightful article by Janet Maslin of the New York Times, peering into the touching and evocative memoir.