Bread of Angels.

SMITH, Patti.

ISBN 10: 1101875127 / ISBN 13: 9781101875124

Published by Random House, New York, 2025

First edition / First printing. Signed by Patti Smith. Gray paper-covered boards. 267 pages. Very fine in very fine dust jacket. Legendary Poet, Artist and Punk Rock Icon. Inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame in 2007. Smith was Robert Mapplethorpe's roommate. She befriended Writers Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, had an affair and co-wrote a play with Sam Shepard. She contributed to albums by Door's Keyboardist Ray Manzarek and Blue Oyster Cult, before forming her own band. The Patti Smith Group was one of the earliest Punk Rock groups and was a huge influence of countless later acts. Her first memoir, Just Kids, won the 2010 National Book Award. Seller Inventory # 19063

Synopsis:

A radiant new memoir from artist and writer Patti Smith, author of the National Book Award winner Just Kids

“God whispers through a crease in the wallpaper,” writes Patti Smith in this moving account of her life. A post–World War II childhood unfolds in a condemned housing complex where we enter the child’s world of the imagination. Smith, the captain of her loyal and beloved sibling army, vanquishes bullies, communes with the king of tortoises, and searches for sacred silver pennies.

The most intimate of Smith’s memoirs, Bread of Angels takes us through her teenage years where the first glimmers of art and romance take hold. Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan emerge as creative role models as she begins to write poetry then lyrics, ultimately merging both into the songs of iconic recordings such as Horses, Wave, and Easter.

She leaves it all behind to marry her one true love, Fred Sonic Smith, with whom she creates a life of devotion and adventure on a canal in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. Here, she invents a room of her own, a low table, a Persian cup, inkwell and pen, entering at dawn to write. The couple spend nights in their landlocked Chris-Craft studying nautical maps and charting new adventures as they start a family.

A series of profound losses mark her life. Grief and gratitude are braided through years of caring for her children, rebuilding her life and, finally, writing again—the one constant in a life driven by artistic freedom and the power of the imagination to transform the commonplace into the magical, and pain into hope. In the final pages, we meet Smith on the road again, the vagabond who travels to commune with herself, who lives to write and writes to live.

About the Author: Patti Smith is the author of the National Book Award winner Just Kids, as well as Woolgathering, M Train, Year of the Monkey, and Collected Lyrics. Her seminal album Horses has been hailed as one of the top 100 albums of all time. Her global exhibitions include Strange Messenger, Land 250, Camera Solo, and Evidence. In 2005, the French Ministry of Culture awarded Smith the title of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres. Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, Smith is also the recipient of the ASCAP Founders Award, Sweden’s Polar Music Prize, the PEN/Audible Literary Service Award, and the Legion d’honneur.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Bread of Angels.
Publisher: Random House, New York
Publication Date: 2025
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: As New
Dust Jacket Condition: As New
Signed: Signed by Author(s)
Edition: 1st Edition