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Just Kids by Patti Smith

Memoir

Just Kids

Performed by Author

by Patti Smith

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Quick Take

With a poet’s eye for detail, Patti Smith chronicles a remarkable friendship and her journey as a starving artist.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, LGBTQ_themes

    LGBTQ+ themes

  • Illustrated icon, Critically_Acclaimed

    Critically acclaimed

  • Illustrated icon, Writers_Life

    Writer’s life

  • Illustrated icon, NYC

    NYC

Synopsis

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.

LGBTQ+ themes
Gifted & Talented
Oathbound
Liquid
Our Infinite Fates
We Could Be Rats
The Bones Beneath My Skin
Sister Snake
The Three Lives of Cate Kay
I Might Be in Trouble
The Last Hour Between Worlds
High School
The Pairing
Under Your Spell
The Stars Too Fondly
The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye
Spitting Gold
Darling Girls
The Haunting of Velkwood
The Other Significant Others
Interesting Facts about Space
Gwen & Art Are Not in Love
Alice Sadie Celine
The Future
Let Us Descend
Stars in Your Eyes
Masters of Death
Just Kids
Pageboy
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
The London Séance Society
Really Good, Actually
The Light Pirate
Kiss Her Once for Me
Foul Lady Fortune
Siren Queen
Yerba Buena
Love & Other Disasters
Afterparties
Razorblade Tears
One Last Stop
Honey Girl
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Girl, Serpent, Thorn
Red, White & Royal Blue
Wayward Son
This Time Will Be Different
The Red Scrolls of Magic
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
LGBTQ+ themes
View all
Gifted & Talented
Oathbound
Liquid
Our Infinite Fates
We Could Be Rats
The Bones Beneath My Skin
Sister Snake
The Three Lives of Cate Kay
I Might Be in Trouble
The Last Hour Between Worlds
High School
The Pairing
Under Your Spell
The Stars Too Fondly
The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye
Spitting Gold
Darling Girls
The Haunting of Velkwood
The Other Significant Others
Interesting Facts about Space
Gwen & Art Are Not in Love
Alice Sadie Celine
The Future
Let Us Descend
Stars in Your Eyes
Masters of Death
Just Kids
Pageboy
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
The London Séance Society
Really Good, Actually
The Light Pirate
Kiss Her Once for Me
Foul Lady Fortune
Siren Queen
Yerba Buena
Love & Other Disasters
Afterparties
Razorblade Tears
One Last Stop
Honey Girl
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Girl, Serpent, Thorn
Red, White & Royal Blue
Wayward Son
This Time Will Be Different
The Red Scrolls of Magic
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo