Summary of Just Kids

Just Kids is a 2010 autobiographical memoir by American musician Patti Smith. In the book, Smith recounts her relationship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the late 1960s and 1970s, when they were considered two of the most noted artistic innovators in New York City's East Village. Smith paints a vivid picture of bohemian New York life at a time of immense creativity. Smith takes the reader through her odyssey from her arrival in New York with meager means, through a chance encounter with Mapplethorpe, and both of their subsequent struggles to achieve recognition and success. Smith also touches on her complicated relationship with Mapplethorpe, as well as her ongoing one with writer and artist Sam Shepard. Ultimately, Smith's memoir is an emotional and revealing account of her journey to becoming a celebrated artist and the family she created along the way.