Feb
04
2010
Review: Just Kids
Patti Smith is the godmother of punk, punk long before it was cool to be so. Starting in the mid-seventies, she blended her beat poetry with three-chord rock and very quickly became the kind of artist that millions of others would aspire to. Her new book, Just Kids, hit the bestseller list almost as soon as it was released. A memoir of sorts, the book really traces just one aspect of her life–her relationship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe.
Smith met Mapplethorpe on the streets of New York City when they were both just in their young twenties. They began a lifelong relationship, first as lovers and then as friends. Living the Bohemian lifestyle in New York, they traveled in the same Beatnik circles as Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendryx and many of the most prominent artists of the era. Smith’s memoir traces the early days of her relationship with Mapplethorpe when they were lovers, inseparable and much in love, to Mapplethorpe’s death in 1989 when they were just friends.
If you know anything of the life of Robert Mapplethorpe, you’ll know that he was openly and proudly homosexual. But he did not actually become homosexual until his early twenties, a couple of years after he met Smith. And even then he seemed to be conflicted, desiring first both and then neither. But eventually he came to terms with his homosexuality, a fact that was soon reflected in his art, much of which was highly-erotic and homosexual in nature. He began to document through photography much of the ugly underside of the homosexual lifestyle. But he and Smith remained fast friends, continuing to live together and continuing to support one another year after year. As Mapplethorpe became a sought-after photographer and as Smith became a highly-regarded musician, their paths continued to cross and their friendship remained. It remained until 1989 when Mapplethorpe’s lifestyle caught up with him and he died of complications arising from AIDS.
I found Just Kids a profoundly depressing book. I saw Smith and Mapplethorpe fall further and further into their sin, finding delight in the occult, getting more involved in drugs, and Robert increasingly giving himself over to homosexuality. They saw friend after friend fall prey to the Bohemian life they had chosen, succumbing to drugs and disease. Any happiness they found was fleeting, any joy directed only to the immediate gratification of their most self-centered desires. They both wanted to find fame and though both found it, it seems that it just drove happiness and purpose farther and farther away.
It is interesting to note that both grew up in religious households, Smith as the daughter of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mapplethorpe as the son of faithful Roman Catholics. And yet both hated God, mocking him through their art and turning instead to what was Satanic, attributing their success more to Darkness than to Light. And not surprisingly, their life and their work reflects that darkness. The wages of sin is death, the Bible tells us. And the stench of death is all over the lives of both Smith and Mapplethorpe. It’s all over this book.
Verdict: Read it if you’re stuck on a desert island and this is the only book that washes ashore with you.
12 Comments
Loved the verdict you gave this Tim, lol.
I must agree with the review!! Thanks Tim, you seem to always hit the nail on the head. I only have so many hours in a day, just like the rest of you. Knowing how to manage my time and what books r worthy of it, is such a blessing!!
Thank you and God Bless!!
You pious hypocrites really live in your own little world, don’t you? “Just Kids” is breathtakingly moving and beautiful book. It’s the story of the evolution of a love between two people who continue to support and care for each other even after their paths in life and art diverge. They both later go on to become renowned artists on their own, but the love they have for each other remains and sustains them. Patti Smith is one of the most courageous and compassionate people I am aware of.
I see one of the cranks came out.
RDB,
Patti Smith is still alive, still kicking around. Her experiences in the 70’s were based on the spirit of the age, and her being a kind of disciple of the times does not necessitate a slam. I wonder at the reason for doing this kind of reading and inquiry if it is not the ability to love our neighbor better, and perhaps be a better ambassador for Christ in a world that needs to hear His voice distinctly.
It is easy to take the moral high-ground, to put people in their supposed place when we do not agree with their life-style. But empathy only comes when we know that we are products of grace, not our own nietzscheien abilities. If we are chosen of God, it is not for any reason He could find in us. If Patti Smith is not chosen of God, it is for the same reasons that He could have rejected me.
The story of the pharisee and the publican comes to mind.
Thanks for continuing to write your reviews. Your blog is a cry for the sanity that only comes from a changed heart. As a librarian, I read widely – and you’re coming to the conclusions I come to after reading these bestsellers. I constantly wonder how people can uphold artists, celebrities, etc. whose lives are lived completely apart from God…empty, angry, and unfulfilled (and yet, society admires this as something to emulate!). Talent and a gifted mind don’t equal goodness. Instead, they become wasted abilities when you turn away. It’s refreshing to read someone seeing beyond the world’s values.
Read it if you’re stuck on a desert island and this is the only book that washes ashore with you.
Right on!
I haven’t read (nor heard of) this book, but I do read a lot of memoir. And while I often find it depressing, I also find it illuminating. These are the kinds of ideas and habits that I have no frame of reference for, and yet so many live this way. I guess I’m saying that it helps me to be more compassionate.
This may sound a bit pedantic, but the moniker “godmother of punk” seems misplaced. I have heard this applied to PS over the years and wondered at the title as a misguided one. Why? As you said in the article, she was a child of the late 60’s and expressed what might be called a Bohemian life-style. This is a different animal than the later expressions of Malcolm McLaren (although his work in NY may have involved partying with Smith) and the English punk scene. Smith may have lived in their orbit for a while, but hers was a different solar-system. The impetus behind the two groups was different.
For the sake of music history, if not cultural studies, the distinction should be made. The English punk scene of the late 70’s (Sex Pistols, Crass, GBH, The Exploited, etc) and the later American versions of hardcore in the early 80’s (Bad Brains, Fear, Scream, The Germs, etc.), were far removed from the world of Patti Smith and friends. The seventies may have been the decade of these kinds of expressions, but this does not mean that there is some kind of social relationship. Frankly, if you had asked a punk in the early 80’s about Smith, they would have dismissed her as a hippie.
Like I said, this might sound pedantic, but heh, I was there.
PS- Her work with Bruce Springsteen in ‘78 most DEFINITELY put her outside the punk scene. At this time the Sex Pistols were touring the states.
Chris, I’ve always disliked the kind of labels like “godmother of punk” that people have applied to her as well. I think maybe because she was playing at CBCGs around the same time, or a little before, groups like the Ramones, she got tagged with monikers like that. That and the fact that what she did on stage was so deliberately different from the corporate rock and roll that was so prevalent at the time.
Whatever. She doesn’t even claim to be a “musician” per se. What she tried to do was marry her poetry with relatively simple three chord rock and roll. Her first album was awesome, the second one over produced, the third really good, and the fourth one way over produced. Then she quit in 1979, moved to Michigan, got married, and had two kids. She and her husband made an album in the mid to late eighties, but she didn’t want to tour for it and her heart really didn’t seem to be in it. It was only after her husband, her brother, and her keyboardist Richard Sohl all died within a few months of each other that she decided to re-emerge. She kind of had to, she had to make a living for herself and her kids. With encouragement from people like Michael Stipe of R.E.M. she went on tour in like 1995, I think, with Bob Dylan.
Oh, and by the way, I couldn’t get my teenage self in the door to the Sex Pistols’ first U.S. gig in Atlanta because it was so packed with press people. I saw Patti at an event for her book a couple of weeks ago in Portland. It was in an old theater with about 800 people. She was really nice, warm, and had a great sense of humor even when people asked her boneheaded questions. She ended the evening with an audience sing-a-long while Peter Buck of R.E.M. played acoustic guitar.
Bryan,
Great history stuff. I was only 9 when the Pistols were on tour, but when I turned 10 it was the Clash. Talk about mind-blowing. Although I am different person now, those were formative times that left an imprint on me (my sixth grade home-ec class was spent designing and sewing a shirt patterned after Joe Strummer’s stuff). I am still a punk-rocker at heart, just one with a renewed life in Christ.
The CBGB’s things is good to keep in mind. Most folks don’t know it stands for Country Blue Grass and Blues. It was a club for every type of music, including Smith’s stuff.
Thanks for the stuff on Smith. Sounds like an interesting night with an icon of American music. I have never been a fan, but she made a contribution that obviously influenced many people.
Take care,
c