Book Review: Just Kids | Patti Smith

At the heart of this memoir there is a fateful connection of two people who meet as lazily as they coexisted.

It is a wonder if Patti would've ended up wandering the streets of New York City with the guy from Venus is he hadn't disappeared one day leaving her alone to find another fellow wanderer.  Patti seems to float along becoming a pregnant teenager who unceremoniously gives it up for adoption.  She is convinced (like most of us) New York City is Valhalla where some friends have already made their way.  By the time she is ensconced in the city atmosphere her original friends are an afterthought in the coming wave that took her over.  Robert Mapplethorpe.  She, a transient meets him who seems to be in constant repose.  as I am writing this I have no idea what his birthday is, but I'm guessing Taurus or Taurus rising or maybe he's just someone with a birthday like mine who looks like a lazy bum when they are at their most creatively attuned and ready to pounce.  He is barely awake when he helps her find her way.  It’s hard to read about a girl making all the wrong moves because of a guy - in hindsight.  And it's conflicting when said guy is the impetus for her fame and fortune.  There seems to be a theme here, between Patti and (my last post about) Kim Gordon's New York City, where these women are held back and simultaneously propelled by the leading men in their lives.
What’s grating about Patti's NYC is the romanticized pioneer lifestyle.  What Patti is a pioneer of is unclear: philosophies, style, transience - they've all been done.  Even gentrification was common by the time she made a home of Brooklyn.  but, in this world, pioneering justifies living in the Chelsea Hotel at its cusp of rock-hub-ism versus a spacious and more affordable spot in the east village, lifting steaks from Gristedes despite her gainful employment at Scribner and moving from a crime-riddled loft to a flop house where visions of American Horror Story Hotel images formed from her description of its residents. 
Robert and Patti seem to float along with a supply of benefactors along the way, when they weren't each other’s support.  it wasn't explicitly said or described nearly as romantic as was  their drifting lifestyles, but Patti described their intimacy with unflinching and nearly religious devotion even through Robert's trench mouth (which I had to look up, then really wanted to give Patti what for) - Girl! And through his bouts of gonorrhea and mood swings when his true sexuality would flare up and she was too much of a reminder.  She was a reticent receiver whose transformation - an impromptu haircut, got her instant entrée; triggered by a snide comment Patti took the brunt of being an unintended cock-blocker for people competing for Robert's affection and attention. "Are you a folk singer?" was said to her the fateful night she chopped her hair (guys can be real bitches).  It is amazing how then (and now still) how doors opened for her because of her haircut.  People asked her to be in their films and plays and eventually to read poetry - all because of something as superficial as a chopping one's hair (and then not brushing it for the ultimate punk look).  This is the trajectory in some lives and is true of New York scenes, at least the ones which likely converge in the Max's Kansas Cities, the CBGBs and the Chelsea Hotels of the strata.  Such as it were through Patti's own words: "The politics at Max's were very similar to high school, except the popular people were not the cheerleaders or football heroes and the prom queen would most certainly a he, dressed as a she, knowing more about being a she than most she's." 
Patti nonetheless ran with her newfound stratum until she could ride the wave enough to leave Scribner.   She created with Robert on occasion during these times.  It was only when Robert, not Patti, veered off, fully ensconced in his photography that Patti was left to finally soar - a "blue star" all on her own.  His response: "Patti, you got famous before me."  He always seemed to whine and compliment simultaneously.  He sounded like a handful.  I did not read this memoir as a fan nor NOT a fan, simply on the reputation of her being a punk icon.  I've only heard "Because The Night" or "Gloria" by way of background music in places like coffeehouses or something, so it was surprising to see a person of raw talent begin as a Mia Farrow character - how many times have I wanted to slap pregnant Rosemary, let me count the ways.  Maybe all women come from some place of being where they don't realize their own selves until met with opposition - the opposition culminating into a man who without her is okay but with her is more dynamic than she is with him.  A symbiotic relationship with New York City and Robert sounded all too familiar a tale.  A girl with all the potential in the world came to the City to do something with her talent and discover her Self through art, then she meets a guy and his desire takes precedence - she adapts or dies (without him) so she chooses to be of his world instead creating her own - propelled and held back by him.  Through the fuzzy romanticism and prose - both Patti and Robert accustomed to formality, her poetry and Rimbaud, him Catholic ritual and Mary Magdalene, is a co-dependent partnership which by some prescient desire (mostly Robert's) swirled with the 70s punk era.  If they had one thing right it was their direction - or lack of and absence of long term goals - which worked probably, and befitting of the memoir's title.  Just kids messing around, living life day by day, having fun, making art, maybe a little love too, and most of all trying to be seen.

  "Nothing was spoken, it was just mutually understood.”

From the cover of this edition of the book.  "Coney Island. 1969"