There are icons and then there’s Patti Smith: songwriter extraordinaire, the “Godmother of Punk,” confidante of Robert Mapplethorpe, and author of the National Book Award-winning Just Kids and other acclaimed memoirs. Her exuberant new book charts the arc of her life, from an unsettled childhood rooted in a religious, working-class family, “a human relic from a primordial culture,” to global stardom and later marriage and motherhood. Hers is an affecting lament for innocence lost—“all the pennies in the world can’t buy our Toyland back”—but she is also buoyant as she comes into her own amid the heady downtown Manhattan scene of the 1970s. Her husband, Fred “Sonic” Smith, and her two sons nurtured her heart, an uneasy domesticity cut short by Fred’s early death. Here, Smith accomplishes the impossible: baring her soul while preserving a sense of inscrutable mystery. —Hamilton Cain
These are independent reviews of the products mentioned, but TIME receives a commission when purchases are made through affiliate links at no additional cost to the purchaser.
Buy Now: Bread of Angels on Bookshop | Amazon
