Just Kids by Patti Smith

The book sticks with me.
Makes me wish I lived in New York in the sixties and seventies and experienced the street struggle and its art scene, when artists were making and being part of History.
Patti Smith’s narrative is an elegy to a lost friend and great artist – Robert Mapplethorpe-, a tale of generosity and love. I was shocked to find out that she discovered her own talent and started doing her own thing so late in life. Sam Sheppard, who really saw through her, gave her her first guitar.
In their early years together, Robert Mapplethorpe’s ambition and dreams stimulated Patti Smith, and her providing for Robert made it possible for him to develop his art, until they went their separate ways in pursue of their own dreams.
I feel happy that I will go to a Patti Smith concert in a few weeks, it feels like witnessing a little miracle.

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