Patti Smith’s new memoir, Bread of Angels, arrives on a significant date. On November 4, 1946, Smith’s artistic soulmate and first true love, the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, was born. Forty-eight years later, on the same day, her “king among men”, beloved husband and fellow musician, Fred “Sonic” Smith, died of a heart attack.
It seems entirely fitting that this most intimate, comprehensive book – a decade in the making – should be published on such a hallowed day, almost 50 years exactly since her debut album, Horses, was released.
