Patti’s book is like one of her poems or paintings, but mostly like one of her songs. There are repeated refrains, like the symbol of a blue star or a Persian necklace of black and silver thread or the image of Robert getting dressed, painstakingly. There are verses building and building, leading the couple from the streets to the Chelsea Hotel to various studios and experiences around the world, together and apart. There is instrumentation that seems often dissonant – the excited pattering of a tambourine contrasts with the wail of a despairing saxophone as Robert and Patti maintain a desperately optimistic front at a time when they must share a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner and the best minds of their generation are peeling off at twenty-seven. The whole book feels like a scratchy recording you just dug up from your grandmother’s basement – it’s a vintage relic, a faded but marvelous reminder of another time, written without sentimentality. Patti’s voice guides us through her book, like her songs, with measured calmness. Her words are effortlessly lyrical. Understated to the point of almost lacking emotion, describing the summer she met Robert as “the summer Coltrane died…. Flower children raised their empty arms and China exploded the H-bomb. Jimi Hendrix set his guitar in flames in Monterey.” Later in the book, Patti will name-drop without name-dropping, sketch out a few decades without a thought, and describe fame without a trace of self-congratulations. Her voice is like when you give yourself a pep-talk in the mirror, personal and all-knowing. It is as easy as anything to fall under its spell.

The book, or song, as it were, serves as a kind of middle ground or meeting point for anyone who has ever been drawn to art, in any form. At one, Patti is perched on the staircase outside a party she is too shy to enter when Jimi Hendrix walks up. She writes,

“He spent a little time with me on the stairs and told me his vision…. He dreamed of amassing musicians from all over the world in Woodstock and they would sit in a field in a circle and play and play. It didn’t matter what key or tempo or what melody, they would keep on playing through their discordance until they found a common language. Eventually they would record this abstract universal language of music in his new studio.”

Just Kids is the story of an era that many readers have only heard about in fragments of acoustic recordings and whispers of New York City history. It describes two extraordinary lives that few will ever imitate. And yet, with its themes of desperation, inspiration, and love, it manages to appeal to everyone from baby boomers to a young girl named Delilah, whose mother purchased Robert’s old writing desk at an auction and whose picture is included in the back of the book. It speaks to anyone who has ever tried to capture a feeling, a person, or a city in words, beads, drumbeats.  Whatever language Patti used, it is not only universal but feels sharply true, heavy with meaning but empty of answers.

“‘The language of peace,’” Jimi continued as Patti remained crouched and silent. “‘You dig?’” I think she did.