Brace yourselves, literary punks and poetry-heads. Patti Smith is back with a brand new memoir, and it's set to be her most personal one yet. Titled Bread of Angels, the book drops on November 4 according to Guardian and spans everything from her gritty childhood in Philadelphia and New Jersey to her explosive rise as punk's patron saint, coupled with the quiet, contemplative retreat that followed.
Calling it her "most intimate and visionary work," Smith reveals she's been chiseling away at this book for over a decade. "Grappling with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime," she says, "I'm hoping that people will find something they need." If her past memoirs are anything to go by, they absolutely will.
Fans of her 2010 National Book Award-winning Just Kids, her tender ode to her relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe, already know Smith has a rare gift for turning memory into magic. Bread of Angels seems poised to take us even deeper, arriving poignantly on a day heavy with personal resonance: it's both Mapplethorpe's birthday and the anniversary of her late husband Fred "Sonic" Smith's death.
The release slots neatly between the Europe and US legs of her 50th anniversary Horses tour. In other words, Smith's November will be brimming with riffs and raw reflections.
"Patti Smith is a living legend," says Alexis Kirschbaum of Bloomsbury Trade. "Bread of Angels confirms her place not just in rock history, but in the literary canon."
Bread of Angels marks her sixth book, following poetic and philosophical works. Smith's body of work bridges poetry and punk with equal ferocity. Her 1975 debut album Horses, featuring the iconic opener Gloria: In Excelsis Deo, reshaped rock with its raw, poetic fury.
On the other hand, her writing has always been soft, yellowing at the edges owing to a fresh, human touch with stellar books such as M Train, a coffee-soaked meditation on grief, creativity, and routine, and Year of the Monkey, which veers into dreamlike territory, tracing a year of loss and surreal encounters. Raging in People Have the Power and reflecting in prose, Smith's voice remains singular, rebellious, sacred, and deeply human.
Whether she's scribbling in journals, snapping black-and-white Polaroids, or snarling into a mic, Smith has never stopped making meaning. With Bread of Angels, she offers us another sacred slice of her world - part sermon, part spell, all Patti.
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