Review: The life-affirming gospel of Patti Smith

Patti Smith has created a memoir which reads more like a gospel or beat prose-poem than a conventional autobiography. Which is, of course, entirely in keeping with the oeuvre that has made Smith such a lauded cultural figure, less a rock star than a wandering shaman; she achieved what Jim Morrison was too drunk, and then too dead, to pull off.

- Martin Robinson

In 2010 Smith won the US National Book Award for Just Kids, her coming-of-age tale of her early years in 1970s New York with Robert Mapplethorpe. It was a vivid snapshot of a pivotal moment for two great artists, and a book Smith had promised Mapplethorpe she would write as he lay dying in 1989. With Bread of Angels, Smith expands into the tale of her entire life, one that starts slow, before gaining pace and hitting a full heightened gallop, mirroring those improvisational songs on her debut album, Horses, which turned 50 this month.

They didn’t have it easy. Poverty-stricken, the family moved frequently and Smith was a sickly child, contracting tuberculosis, measles, pneumonia, everything. Her fevers seemed to fuel her wild imagination. Later, she quit her Bible studies, deciding to “prepare myself for the life of an artist,” and then found a copy of Illuminations by Arthur Rimbaud; her course was set.

Escape to New York