Patti Smith’s ‘Just Kids’ and How it Paints the Perfect Picture of the 70s.

It’s no secret that Patti Smith’s Just Kids is one of the most engaging, emotional, and masterful pieces of writing out there. Smith’s memoir eloquently recalls her maturity from childhood to adulthood, and focuses most upon her relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe. It’s the perfect look at the sex, drugs, and rock & roll that we can expect of the seventies, and an insight into the artistic scene that moulded many icons. 

Just Kids is an undeniable love letter to the seventies. From a conversation with Jimi Hendrix on the staircase outside of a party, to singing Janis Joplin a song dedicated to her in her famous Chelsea Hotel room, Patti’s fabulous recollections of her early adulthood are what dreams are made of. Smith writes that she saw The Doors in concert and that this was a pivotal moment in her career as both a poet and musician, a feeling further validated by her experiences of seeing The Velvet Underground. Smith’s path was forged by figures widely regarded as the greats of the decade: Hendrix, Joplin, Reed, and Morrison to name just a few. 

However, Smith does not shy away from the less idyllic aspects of her life in New York. She recalls being homeless when first moving to the city, and the vicious struggle faced by herself and many of her friends to survive there as artists. Before this, Smith writes of her childhood, her unplanned pregnancy, and the other events that led her to New York. With the excitement of the drug-fuelled haze of the decade also comes tragedy and loss, touched on by Smith as she writes of the respective deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Edie Sedgwick from overdoses. While tough to read, Smith’s mournful words are indivisible from the reality of the seventies’ sex, drug, and rock & roll culture. 

It would be extremely difficult to read Just Kids and view it as anything but a memoir, not of Patti’s life, but of Robert Mapplethorpe’s life. True to her style, Patti does not shy away from recounting mistakes that both she and Robert made in their relationship, and in life. She does not try to paint Robert as a saint, but paints him as human. Mapplethorpe acts as a muse for Smith’s writing, with much of the book acting as a memoir of the vitality, creativity, and character that Mapplethorpe brought into Smith’s life, and the final section acting as an elegy to Robert. Smith’s book begins and ends with her artist, her blue star. 

Patti Smith’s Just Kids is a beautiful love story of New York, the 70s and her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. After all, they really were just kids. 

Words by Beth Hibbard, she/her

Just Kids, Patti Smith, Bloomsbury Publishing