A rare gray, rainy Saturday settles over Los Angeles, with raindrops gathering on the window of a building overlooking a line of trees at Le Parc on Melrose.
Soft light filled the hotel room, highlighting a brown coffee table. A new, unpublished novel by Swiss author Nelio Biedermann rested beside a cup of tea, and a wooden cross necklace lay on the floor.
“It’s really humid out, which isn’t great for singing, but we’ll manage,” Patti Smith said as she reached for her mug.
She’s wearing a gray beanie to cover her gray and white hair. Even though it rained about an hour ago when she was walking with her son, she’s still wearing a slightly damp blazer over a black t-shirt. True to her style, she’s paired light-wash jeans with tan heeled boots.
I recently met this incredible woman who’s 78, turning 79 in December. She just chuckled and said, ‘I guess I’m getting older!’ with the sweetest smile. It was a really charming moment – a lovely reminder that age is just a number, and she clearly embraces it.
In just seven hours, she’ll be performing the entire album “Horses” live at Walt Disney Concert Hall – fifty years after its original release. That’s why everyone’s been so concerned about the humidity levels.
Patti Smith’s mesmerizing new memoir looks back in wonder — and sorrow
As a huge Patti Smith fan, I was completely captivated by ‘Bread of Angels.’ It’s a really raw and honest look back at her life – from a tough upbringing, through the excitement of finding success, and then dealing with the heartbreaking loss of her husband, Fred Sonic Smith. It feels incredibly personal, especially knowing how beautifully she wrote about those early years with Fred in ‘Just Kids,’ which, by the way, won a National Book Award!
She continued, explaining that while the rain was welcome, it made the air thick and difficult to breathe, which made playing her instrument more challenging.
The tour celebrating the anniversary happens to be released alongside a new book, not an album. Titled “Bread of Angels,” this book is Smith’s autobiography, detailing her life story. It’s meant to be read alongside her previous memoir, “Just Kids,” which won a National Book Award in 2010.
The book is now considered a modern classic because of its deeply personal look at the artist Smith’s beginnings. It focuses especially on her time living at the Hotel Chelsea with her close friend and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, whom she describes as the most influential person in her early life.
Honestly, I’m really excited for people to read these two books together. The author sees ‘Just Kids’ as one half of a pair, and this new book as the other – like they’re brother and sister to each other. It feels like she intended them to be experienced as a set, and I totally get why!
In her book, “Bread of Angels,” she touches on Robert Mapplethorpe, and beautifully captures their connection when recalling “Just Kids.” She writes, “I carried the manuscript with me in my little metal suitcase. Though Robert and I never traveled much when we were alive, we were going everywhere together now.”
This book mainly explores Smith’s difficult childhood, her marriage to Fred Smith, and why they ultimately chose to live a private life.
“There’s only maybe three lines about Fred in ‘Just Kids,’” she says.
Even as she wrote, Patti acknowledged that Fred’s struggles were deeply personal and ultimately heartbreaking for her, and she believed there was no benefit in publicly detailing his private difficulties.
Honestly, writing about Fred was the hardest part of the whole project. He was such a private person, and even now, it feels like he still is. I have tons of memories and stories, of course, but I really wanted to share just enough to give people a glimpse of who he was – to let them know him, even a little bit.
Smith says the idea for her memoir actually started with a vivid dream she had ten years ago: a messenger arrived at her door with a book.
She recalls owning a white book tied with a white ribbon. Inside were four photographs taken by Irving Penn, each showing one of her dresses: the one she wore as a child, the one Robert gave her, the one her brother bought, and her vintage Victorian wedding dress.
The book was the author’s life story, and each chapter focused on a different dress. I even fell asleep with it in my hands.
Music
Patti Smith, a legend in rock and roll, is coming back to Southern California for her first shows here in over a year and a half.
She tried to ignore the feeling for a while, even though she felt it was a signal, but it kept bothering her. She realized she really needed to act on it, saying, “I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was supposed to do this.”
She started remembering the people she had lost: Fred, Robert Mapplethorpe, her friend and the playwright Sam Shepard, and her brother, Todd Smith. They were all gone now.
“All stripped of the possibilities of forging work, adventure and life on Earth,” she writes.
She also felt compelled to honor those she had lost, especially at their young age.
She wanted to write about people she knew who died before they had a chance to truly share their lives or experiences.
The book also aimed to correct misinformation, as the author had encountered many false stories about her life, particularly after she and Fred stepped back from public life.
She explained that she avoids using books to criticize or speak negatively about others. She and her husband were often the subject of untrue rumors and speculation, and she doesn’t want to contribute to that kind of negativity.
Eventually, you have to choose: will you let others define your life story, or will you write it yourself? Everything in my book is truthful, even if I’ve embellished details or presented them in a way that shows me in a positive light.
You really get a sense of who she is when she talks about growing up. It wasn’t easy – she had a tough childhood, moving around a lot – twelve different times before even reaching fourth grade! And sadly, she experienced a lot of loss as a kid, seeing friends pass away or just vanish from her life unexpectedly. It clearly shaped her.
She fondly remembers her friend Klara, who greatly encouraged her writing. Klara disappeared suddenly, leaving behind only a damaged botanical book. This happened shortly after the author’s friend Stephanie passed away from kidney failure at the young age of twelve.
At the same time, she was fighting ailments of her own.
By fourth grade, Smith had already recovered from tuberculosis, scarlet fever, mumps, and chickenpox. However, during the Asian flu pandemic, she contracted a severe virus that almost proved fatal.
She explains that young children are naturally focused on themselves. Because of this, they don’t always express genuine thankfulness – not because they’re intentionally rude, but simply because they’re absorbed in what’s happening around them.
This is a chance for me to express my gratitude to those who deserve it, as I don’t plan to write a book like this one again.
Entertainment & Arts
Patti Smith’s ‘Just Kids’ beautifully captures the energy of the 1960s and 70s, making those of us who grew up later wish we’d experienced that exciting and transformative time.
Her childhood wasn’t entirely unhappy. Smith fondly remembers getting a copy of Blanche Jennings Thompson’s “Silver Pennies,” a single family trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art where Picasso’s art deeply affected her, and discovering Oscar Wilde’s “The Selfish Giant” in a listing of fairy tales in Children’s Digest.
It’s captivating how accurately she remembers past experiences and describes her emotions. She believes we all need to reconnect with our inner child to overcome challenges with hope and resilience.
It’s a relationship she maintains: “She’s still here,” she says of her younger self.
She believes her childhood imagination and strong sense of right and wrong have been incredibly helpful throughout her life. While she’s taken responsibility as an adult, she’s also managed to hold onto that childhood wonder and, most importantly, her imagination.
Time is quickly passing—Smith will be performing “Horses” in just six hours, and he might even share the stage with the talented young songwriter behind the hits “Gloria” and “Redondo Beach.”
Today, the album is celebrated as a hugely important early punk record, blending the lyrical style of 1960s songwriters with the sounds of New York City at the time. But when it first came out, it wasn’t a commercial success.
Smith chuckles and admits, ‘Despite everything, I never had a gold record, and honestly, that’s okay with me.’ He explains that while recording his album ‘Horses,’ he was actually working at a bookstore and fully expected to return to that job after the tour ended.
By 1979, four years after her initial rise to fame, Smith released the album “Wave.” Around the same time, she and her band, the Patti Smith Group, broke up, leading to speculation about her reasons for doing so.
She remembers being overwhelmed by constant demands – everything revolved around promoting the album, the tour, and even the next record. She spent all her time traveling, visiting radio stations, and doing interviews. While none of it was bad, she realized she wasn’t actually creating anything as an artist.
I’d stopped writing and keeping a journal. I was caught up in the fast-paced cycle of touring and performing, which, while thrilling, was also draining. Because of that, I wasn’t really growing or developing as a person creatively.
Smith had a history of prioritizing her artistic vision, even when it meant making personal sacrifices. She once admitted she’d been mistaken to think success came only from hard work, pointing to instances where she refused to compromise her art – like declining to lip-sync during performances or change her song lyrics.
For today’s artists, she says it comes down to a “personal choice.”
I never aimed to become a pop star, and I have a lot of respect for those who are. It’s just not a path I felt suited to my own talents. It didn’t align with the kind of work I was doing, and I couldn’t see myself doing it. I’ve turned down some very well-paying opportunities because they didn’t feel authentic to me – they were someone else’s ideas, not my own.
Everyone should make choices that feel right for their own situation. There’s nothing wrong with someone using lip-sync if that’s what they need to do.
She focuses, furrowing her brow to deliver yet another batch of priceless advice.
No matter what your dream is – whether you want to be a baker, gardener, plumber, poet, or anything else – you have to be prepared to work hard. It takes dedication and effort to succeed at anything. Today, it sometimes feels like people focus more on quickly achieving results or promoting something rather than actually doing the work itself.
No matter how much attention marketing, social media, or awards bring, it’s the quality of the work itself that will ultimately last.
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2025-11-19 14:03