Patti Smith, the world renowned writer, musician and visual artist, discusses and signs her new book, Just Kids, a memoir of her time in New York with Robert Mapplethorpe, and offers a beautiful acoustic performance on guitar.

Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. It is a fascinating look at New York City in the late sixties and seventies and a beautiful portrait of two young artists’ prelude to fame.  It was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion and initiation. Smith would evolve as a poet and performer and Mapplethorpe would direct his highly provocative style toward photography.

Recorded Sunday, February 21, 2010 at Chicago Public Library.