Just Kids
By Patti Smith
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Editorial review
A National Book Award winner that also functions as one of the most useful books about how a creative life is actually built — between cheap apartments, cheap meals, and stubborn loyalty between two artists who refused, on principle, to grow up before they had something to show for it.
AI-distilled summary
Patti Smith's memoir of her early years in late-1960s and 1970s New York, centered on her formative friendship and creative partnership with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.
Key takeaways
- 1
A creative life is built mostly out of devotion, not breakthroughs.
- 2
The right collaborator is sometimes more decisive than the right idea.
- 3
Poverty, when shared with purpose, is not the same thing as deprivation.
- 4
Loyalty to the work is the only kind of stability available to most artists.
- 5
Great cities accept you when you accept the version of yourself who shows up there.