a single line in its times review led me to patti smith's gorgeous memoir, just kids: "they went to coney island, able to afford only one hot dog. (ms. smith got the sauerkraut.)"
i plucked it unsuspectingly from the strand's front table, hardly able to detect its beating heart at the time. the book chronicles patti's life-long (and only briefly romantic) relationship with robert mapplethorpe. the two arrived in new york penniless in the early 1960s (a city i hardly recognize) and met by chance. they shared an egg cream in the east village and then were inseparable as best friends, roommates (for a spell, among the other misfits at the chelsea hotel), and soul mates. everything about patti and robert's chelsea and brooklyn, their transcendent love for one another, their youth, their aspirations to create art was so alive. the book, in turn, is unflinchingly soulful.
the mention of just kids this week, after it received the national book award, still stirs something in me several months later. and just listening to patti read her last letter to robert may very well break your heart a little.
