WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD Reading rocker Smith's account of her relationship with
photographer Robert Mapplethorpe it's hard not to believe in fate. How else to explain the
chance encounter that threw them together allowing both to blossom? Quirky and spellbinding.
-- People It was the summer Coltrane died the summer of love and riots and the summer when a
chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art devotion and initiation.
Patti Smith would evolve as a poet and performer and Robert Mapplethorpe would direct his
highly provocative style toward photography. Bound in innocence and enthusiasm they traversed
the city from Coney Island to Forty-Second Street and eventually to the celebrated round table
of Max's Kansas City where the Andy Warhol contingent held court. In 1969 the pair set up
camp at the Hotel Chelsea and soon entered a community of the famous and infamous the
influential artists of the day and the colorful fringe. It was a time of heightened awareness
when the worlds of poetry rock and roll art and sexual politics were colliding and
exploding. In this milieu two kids made a pact to take care of each other. Scrappy romantic
committed to create and fueled by their mutual dreams and drives they would prod and provide
for one another during the hungry years. Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy.
It 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.
