Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

I stumbled across a reference to this book in a review of a new biography of Robert Mapplethorpe, Smith's long time friend, lover and soul-mate. Intrigued, mainly because of Mappplethorpe's well-documented homosexuality which resulted in his death from HIV-AIDS, I wondered how he could have had a relationship with Patti Smith. In this beautifully written and poignant memoir, she reveals all.

I knew very little about Patti Smith except that she had lost a baby to adoption in 1967. She always seemed to be on the margins of various sub-cultures - Andy Warhol's Factory, the Beats - without immersing herself in any of them. It is her detached aloofness that has allowed her to observe these sub-cultures with an objectivity not usually found in such a reflective memoir. She writes of her escape from New Jersey only made possible by finding, in a phone box, a pink plastic purse containing no identification but enough money for her bus fare to New York. Smith's accounts of her experiences in New York, and particularly at the Chelsea Hotel, could seem incredible except for her vividly authentic recounting of them.

Throughout her memoir, Smith invokes the work of Rimbaud and eventually goes on a pilgrimage to Paris and Charleville, the site of Rimbaud's grave. The book is scattered with some of her poems and several photographs taken by Mapplethorpe which display the intensity of their relationship. When Mapplethorpe enters a permanent gay relationship, Smith finally realises and acknowledges that she will never be his partner.

Memoir can be a self-indulgent exercise, or it can be worthwhile reading only for those with an interest in the subject. "Just Kids" is neither. It is a perceptive account of life in New York's demi-monde in the 1960s and '70s.