A National Book Award winning memoir by one half of the 1960’s/70’s/80’s duo of Patti Smith and Robert Maplethorpe.  Leaving her working class roots in S. Jersey, Smith traveled to Brooklyn, the Village, and beyond seeking an outlet to develop her writing, drawing, and acting, connecting in a random encounter at the bookstore where she worked with another waif, born in 1946, a former Catholic altar boy from PA.  Pledging to be each other’s life partner in art, Smith and Maplethorpe lived hard, loved each other and others, and emerged as iconic flower children and artists breaking the molds.  Maplethorpe’s exotic/erotic photographs of the S&M scene in gay life and Smith’s performance melding of rock and poetry broke barriers and changed the arts.  The book is beautiful, sad, loving, and very engaging. The Chelsea Hotel emerges as a hero in its own right.