First published 2024
Jennifer Clement chronicles her unconventional upbringing in 1960s Mexico City, where she lived adjacent to Frida Kahlo's residence among a community of artists, communists, revolutionaries, and poets. This bohemian environment fostered her creative awakening and worldly curiosity. The narrative follows Clement as she abandons Latin American political upheaval for New York's emerging counterculture movement in the 1980s. She becomes embedded in the city's art scene, moving within circles that include Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Colette Lumiere, and William Burroughs while making regular appearances at venues like The Mudd Club, Danceteria, and Studio 54. Written by the author of cult favorite Widow Basquiat, this memoir captures dual metropolitan experiences and their creative communities. Clement reconstructs the intensity, joy, and risk that defined 1970s Mexico City and 1980s New York as extraordinary destinations for young people seeking freedom and vitality.
Genres: art, 20th-century, coming-of-age, autobiography, contemporary, biography-memoir, 21st-century, cultural
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, fish-out-of-water
Setting: Mexico City, New York
Period: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s
312 pages · Paperback · Lumen