National Book Award Non Fiction Winner
Just Kids
by Patti Smith
Summary
A poetic memoir of Smith's youthful partnership with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe as the two struggled, loved, and made art in the gritty New York of the late 1960s and 1970s. Moving from the Chelsea Hotel to CBGB, Smith renders a lost downtown world populated by figures like Allen Ginsberg, Sam Shepard, and Andy Warhol. The book is a tender meditation on artistic vocation and on a friendship that shaped two singular careers.
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Historical Context & Significance
A rare win for a legendary rock musician; Smith wrote the book to fulfill a deathbed promise she made to Mapplethorpe.