Just Kids

#438
Title: Just Kids
Author: Patti Smith
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2010
303 pages

Patti Smith's memoir of her life with Robert Mapplethorpe. The tone is consistent throughout and the narrative is interesting and engaging. As an homage to Mapplethorpe, it is not as moving as her book The Coral Sea, but it's a different way of telling the story of their relationship. It's rich in detail and fascinating. For the full emotional impact of Mapplethorpe's death, read these books together.

I've been a huge fan of Patti Smith since 1978. I confess that the more I learn about her,the more she is revealed as weird, vague, and over-meaningfully-engaged with religious images and other people's art. I don't think this is a bad thing, just something that underscores the differences between our approaches to and philosophies of art. I was sorry to learn about her use of drugs in the writing process; I had heard her say in the past that she didn't use drugs, so I'm now less impressed by range of images and the connections between them when I thought they were endogenously-generated. Again, a difference between our ways of engaging in the creative process.