M Train

New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Good/Good. Claire Alexandra Hatfield (Front of Jacket photogr. [12], 253, [7] pages. Illustrations. DJ has some edge wear. Signed by the author sticker on front of DJ. Signed by the author on the title page. Chapters include Cafe 'Ino; Changing Channels; Animal Crackers; The Flea Draws Blood; Hill of Beans; Clock with No Hands; The Well; Wheel of Fortune; How I Lost the Wind-Up Bird; Her Name Was Sandy; Vecchia Zimarrra; Mu; Tempest Air Demons; A Dream of Alfred Wegener; Road to Larache; Covered Ground; How Linden Kills the Thing She Loves; Valley of the Lost; and The Hour of Noon. Contains slight pencil underlining. Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and poet who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses. Called the "punk poet laureate", Smith fused rock and poetry in her work. Her most widely known song is "Because the Night", which was co-written with Bruce Springsteen. It reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1978 and number five in the U.K. In 2005, Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On November 17, 2010, Smith won the National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids. The book fulfilled a promise she had made to her former long-time roommate and partner, Robert Mapplethorpe. She placed 47th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of 100 Greatest Artists published in December 2010 and was also a recipient of the 2011 Polar Music Prize. This book was the winner of the National Book Award. Patti Smith is a writer, performer, and visual artist. Woven through this book are reflections on the writer's craft and on artistic creation. Braiding despair with hope and consolation, illustrated with her signature Polaroids, this book is a meditation on travel, detective shows, literature, and coffee. It is a powerful, deeply moving book by one of the most remarkable multiplatform artists at work today. The book also contains 53 black and white drawings. There is also some pencil underlining on several pages. Woven throughout are reflections on the writer's craft and on artistic creation, as well as singular memories of Smith's life in Michigan, and the irremediable loss of her husband, Fred Sonic Smith. Derived from a Kirkus review: Iconic poet, writer, and artist Smith articulates the pensive rhythm of her life through the stations of her travels. Spending much of her time crouched in a corner table of a Greenwich Village cafe sipping coffee, jotting quixotic notes in journals, and "plotting my next move," the author reflects on the places she's visited, the personal intercourse, and the impact each played on her past and present selves. She describes a time in 1978 when she planned to open her own cafe, but her plans changed following a chance meeting with MC5 guitarist Fred Sonic Smith, who swiftly stole and sealed her heart with marriage and children. A graceful, ruminative tour guide, Smith writes of traveling together with Fred armed with a vintage 1967 Polaroid to Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in northwest French Guiana, then of solitary journeys to Frida Kahlo's Mexican Casa Azul and to the graves of Sylvia Plath, Jean Genet, and a swath of legendary Japanese filmmakers. After being seduced by Rockaway Beach in Queens and indulgently purchasing a ramshackle bungalow there, the property was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy-though she vowed to rebuild. In a hazy, often melancholy narrative, the author synchronizes past memories and contemporary musings on books, art, and Michigan life with Fred. Preferring to write productively from the comfort of her bed, Smith vividly describes herself as "an optimistic zombie propped up by pillows, producing pages of somnambulistic fruit." She spent seasons of lethargy binge-watching crime TV, arguing with her remote control, venturing out to a spontaneous and awkward meeting with chess great Bobby Fischer, and trekking off to interview Paul Bowles in Tangiers. No matter the distance life may take her, Smith always recovers some semblance of normalcy with the simplistic pleasures of a deli coffee on her Gotham stoop, her mind constantly buoyed by humanity, art, and memory. Not as focused as Just Kids, but an atmospheric, moody, and bittersweet memoir to be savored and pondered.