Just Kids in Oly Reads

Sep 01, 2013 Agathafrye rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literary, biographies-memoirs, feminist, awesome, music

The beautiful and unique relationship shared between Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe needed to be documented for posterity. I'm so glad Patti Smith made it happen. I love reading about the various New York scenes in the 70s and 80s and the people who made those scenes happen, so fascinating and entertaining and Patti wrote about them so honestly and evenhandedly that it was a joy to read. Now I see why everybody loved this book. ...more

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Dec 28, 2010 jess rated it really liked it

Shelves: ladyish, 2010, secret-book-club

This is how I finished 2010 - a day in bed with the family: Krista pawing through the hunger games, all the pets cuddled around, Levi watching Police Academy 2 and my nose buried in Patti Smith's story of her life with Robert Mapplethorpe.

They were just kids, broke and living in New York at the end of the 60s, trying to make a life full of art and love from what they could scrape out of the gutters. The story begins in earnest when Patti comes to NY as a teenager and meets Robert one of her fir This is how I finished 2010 - a day in bed with the family: Krista pawing through the hunger games, all the pets cuddled around, Levi watching Police Academy 2 and my nose buried in Patti Smith's story of her life with Robert Mapplethorpe.

They were just kids, broke and living in New York at the end of the 60s, trying to make a life full of art and love from what they could scrape out of the gutters. The story begins in earnest when Patti comes to NY as a teenager and meets Robert one of her first days in town. The book is basically over by the time they become famous - and then she had a band, she toured, touring took her away from the world they had built, they both got famous, she got married, he got sick, etc. It is so much of a story packed into such a short period of time and less than 300 pages.

This is a romantic, lyrical autobiographical rendering of young romance and the frenzied, passionate creative drive that can grasp/create/induce artistic genius. Their shared intimacy, connection & loyalty are the source material for Smith's storytelling. It's clear that her detailed diaries and journals serve as the original draft, reworked into this book, but it reads like a well-told tale, not a diary. The only tip-off is how she remembers so many significant dates. No one remembers that many dates after 40 years unless they kept a diary. I really loved how Smith underlined the significance of particular dates - a gallery opening falls on Joan of Arc's birthday, a song is recorded on her mother's birthday, etc.

CGBGs, Max's, Warhol's Factory, the Chelsea Hotel: these NYC landmarks become landscapes for the story of Robert & Patti's singular devotion. And the parade of celebrities, my god! Of course: Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, it goes on and on. The storytelling is tender and spare without a lot of grandiose description obscuring the story. I appreciated her forthrightness - the story stands on its own and doesn't need to be smothered in gravy of adjectives and metaphors. It's weird to say this, but it was not unlike the experience of reading Camus. It is a quick and enjoyable read, and there is a lot to like about the book.

Smith mostly shies away from graphic depictions of Robert's sexuality & photographic subject matter. She didn't understand or relate to that part of his life, and mostly remembers him outside of that context. “Robert’s subsequent excursions into S&M were bewildering and frightening to me…It was hard for me to match it with the boy I met.” For as much as this book is about art (his, hers, theirs, the whole community), she presents herself as largely naive as Robert goes through major life changes - he is bringing home boyfriends, hustling to bring home money, making friends in the gay and S&M worlds, and she is astounded. Is it a cop-out or a respectful distance? I go back and forth about this. She is masterfully constructing the big picture here, but I don't know if it's an accurate big picture. When his homosexuality becomes impossible to ignore, Patti feels as if she has "failed him." He's dead and he can't respond, but maybe he would not agree that she failed him. I am of two minds on this subject.

Despite all that, all in all, this is a fantastic read and is deserving of the applause, awards and laurels heaped on Patti Smith. It's a fascinating, beautifully written window into the New York most of us can only access in our most fantastic dreams (if we can even dream that big). It is a self-conscious and deliberate love poem to youth, freedom, art, genius, destruction, the City, enduring love and Robert. It was a lovely way to wrap up a year & provides much fodder for my 2011 imagination. ...more

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Feb 08, 2011 Patty rated it really liked it

Patti Smith has done a great job of capturing the essence of the sixties and the art community. She softened the rougher parts of the era--drugs, poverty, etc. She seems to write with rose colored glasses about this past and about Mapplethorpe's difficulties in the art community and life. However, she is really an engaging writer and I loved following her around history and NY city. ...more

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Jun 07, 2011 Keri rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is not a book I would have picked up on my own. But after a friend recommended it and I saw several positive reviews about it (and the friend loaned me her copy), I said why not. Just Kids tells the story of how Patti came to meet her best friend/lover/muse Robert and what their life was like living in New York. While the writing was a big choppy at times, it did offer vivid descriptions that left me with great visualizations. I was surprised to learn that she had had contact with so many f ...more

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May 28, 2016 Frances rated it it was amazing

Exquisite.

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Jan 21, 2011 jesse rated it it was amazing

Shelves: poetry, biography, favorites

one of the most beautiful, honest, and inspirational books i have read in years. it is the story of art and artists becoming, or as patti herself said, "i haven't fucked much with the past, but i've fucked plenty with the future." the title alone is worth the price of admission, because we all are just that in the eyes of the universe, and artists, and hero/ines of our own stories. "don't dream it, be it." ...more

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