Patti Smith will tell the story of her early life and rise as a punk rock legend in a new memoir.
Random House will publish Smith’s Bread of Angels in the fall, the press announced in a news release. It describes the book as “Smith’s most intimate and visionary work.”
Smith, a Chicago native, was raised in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. She released her first album, Horses, in 1975; the record made her an icon of the burgeoning punk rock movement and is now widely considered one of the most influential albums in rock history.
She went on to release several more critically acclaimed albums, including Radio Ethiopia, Easter, and Dream of Life, and scored a hit single in 1978 with “Because the Night,” which she co-wrote with Bruce Springsteen.
Smith is also a photographer, painter, and poet, and author. She published her first memoir, Just Kids, in 2010; the book, which told the story of her friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, won the National Book Award and was recently named by Kirkus as one of the Best Nonfiction Books of the 21st Century (So Far). Two more memoirs, M Train and Year of the Monkey, followed.
Bread of Angels, Random House says, will tell the story of her childhood and adolescence as well as her marriage to Fred “Sonic” Smith, the MC5 guitarist who died in 1994 at the age of 46.
Bread of Angels will be published on Nov. 4. In a statement, Smith explained that the date is “especially meaningful” to her. “It’s the birthday of Robert Mapplethorpe and the anniversary of my late husband Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith’s passing. It took a decade to write this book, grappling with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime. I’m hoping that people will find something they need.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
