Reviews for Just Kids, Patti Smith‘s musings on her early days with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe are trickling in, and, happily for this fan, they’re ranging from good to glowing.  Bookforum calls it “occasionally corny and often deeply affecting.”  Janet Maslin of The New York Times compares it, favorably, to Bob Dylan’s impressionistic take on his own budding youth, Chronicles, Volume I. 

And much like Dylan’s own look back, Patti Smith ends her story on a golden note: fame is looming fast, but the deaths of Mapplethorpe and, later, her husband and musical collaborator, Fred “Sonic” Smith, are still very far away.  A clip of Smith and Mapplethorpe follows below:

 
See also: Remembrances of the Punk Prose Poetess