'M Train' by Patti Smith

M Train, Patti Smith (4.0)

This book really highlights Ms. Smith, the poet and the adult. I read ‘Just Kids’ about her early times in NYC with Robert Maplethorpe. As with that book, Ms. Smith comes across as very approachable for someone so famous. In this book she outlines her daily activities – which often include a walk across the street to the neighborhood café for coffee, toast and hours of jotting in her notebook – and her various travels before and after Hurricane Sandy devastated her city and coastline. She is definitely an observer and recorder of life. Each of the small stories she has chose to outline here is about a place, a person and a devotion of hers. In one case, she goes to a prison in South America to get pebbles to bring to the writer, Jean Genet, who aspired to be in that prison and was too old to visit it himself. The book is also filled with simple photos taken by her various Polaroid cameras. The photos vary from Frida Kahlo’s bed to a favorite book to Virginia Wolf’s walking stick.  She gives small details of her husband, his early death and their children. I found I was hoping for more of that insight – such as: why does she spend holidays alone with her cats? Anyone interested in a soulful artist’s simple stories of unique travel colored by the bohemian side of New York City will enjoy this book.