“Smith's lyrically written memoir of her friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe serves as a time capsule of the Greenwich Village art and music scene in the late 1960s and 1970s. Music, art, and literature buffs will be amazed at the legendary figures -- William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Janis Joplin, and more -- who befriended Smith. But not every member of the downtown scene was quite as recognizable, so readers may need to fire up Wikipedia periodically to research some of the less-familiar names that Smith drops into the text.
I was always a little afraid of Patti Smith, intimidated by her aloof, hipster punk persona, but her intense, complicated devotion to Mapplethorpe and the youthful naivete she revealed in the book gave me new insights into her personality as a loving friend and a lovely writer.”
Sassy Librarian wrote this review Tuesday, April 10, 2012.
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