by Patti Smith
First published 2025
Patti Smith grows up in a crumbling housing complex after World War II, leading her siblings through a world where God speaks through wallpaper cracks and imagination transforms decay into wonder. She discovers Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan as teenage muses, then channels poetry into the raw energy of songs like "Because the Night" and albums like Horses. Smith abandons her rising career to marry guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith, retreating to a Michigan canal house surrounded by willows and pear trees. Together they chart imaginary voyages on their landlocked boat while raising children. When loss strikes, Smith must rebuild her identity as both mother and artist. She creates a writing sanctuary furnished with Moroccan silk and Persian ceramics, slowly finding her way back to words. The book follows her return to the road as a wandering artist who writes to survive and travels to reconnect with her creative core.
Genres: biography, art, 20th-century, coming-of-age, autobiography, contemporary, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, found-family, redemption
Setting: Michigan, Morocco, Persia
Period: World War II
271 pages · Hardcover · BLOOMSBURY