Just Kids by Patti Smith
288 pages, 2010, Harper Collins publishers
A book I will remember. Beautifully written, Smith has opened her heart and let us in to know the tale of her lover and soulmate Robert Mapplethorpe. A story of the late 60's in New York, of starving so they could spend their last dime on artist materials. A quest for truth and beauty and staying committed and close even when life takes unexpected turns. Mapplethorpe died young of aids in the first terrible years of the disease.
No other story has gotten me to fully grasp the tragedy of this horrifying disease when it took out whole communities in the 1980's.
Page 275:
Suddenly he looked up and said, "Patti, did art get us?"
I looked away, not really wanting to think about it. " I don't know, Robert. I don't know."
Perhaps it did, but no one could regret that. Only a fool would regret being had by art; or a saint. Robert beckoned me to help him stand, and he faltered. "Patti," he said, "I'm dying. It's so painful."
He looked at me, his look of love and reproach. My love for him could not save him. His love for life could not save him. It was the first time I truly knew he was going to die.
Before reading this book I mainly knew Patti Smith as a punk singer, and now I know she's so much more. In the role of the stage punk rock grandma she's visiting Östersund this summer. Two days before my baby's due date. I haven't given up on seeing her live on stage....
