Just Kids by Patti Smith


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Remember "A moveable fesat", by Ernst Hemingway? Ok, Patti Smith wrote "Just kids", which is a late 20th century version of it. The book is about her early years in New York city and the relationship she shared with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

Through her story, Smith paints a picture not only of her unapologetic yet sensitive self but also of her long time friend and soul mate, a man who's determination to become an artist took him to dark places, at times created by himself.

Hemingway's "A moveable feast" is about the people he met in Paris in the time between the two world wars: poets, novelists, artists, musician and art marchands all merged into a neverending parade of "regular folks who were in fact somebody".

Smith's book is quite on the other end of the line: she knows she met the right people and seems to treasure the fact that the most important one of them was a young man she met by chance and who one saved her from a bad date.

"Just kids" is a moving story, one that diserves to be turned into a film. Not only because Smith and Mapplethorpe were transformed into two formidable characters, but because it captures the escence of New York city in the 60's and 70's.




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