Patti Smith begins “Just Kids,” her book about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, remembering the moment that she learned he was close to death.  To console herself she listens to a television broadcast of “Tosca” and opens an art book to a reproduction of “Le Yeux Clos” by Odillon Redon.  The drawing, mute and mystical, shows a woman slipping off into a dream-state that’s both pleasurable and painful.

In the book Smith doesn’t dwell on the details of her affair with Mapplethorpe, but on their artistic partnership, a bond that steeled the young bohemians in their aesthetic convictions and set them on the paths of their extraordinary careers.  There are different ways to love another person and Smith and Mapplethorpe loved each other in art.  Smith offers a lovely description of them sitting up all night in their cramped Brooklyn apartment, side by side, filling notebooks with drawings.  It was Smith who supported Mapplethorpe until he was able to support himself.  And it was Mapplethorpe who strong-armed Smith into performing the music-poetry she was crafting.  They followed one another into the revery that’s required to do deeply creative work, while protecting one another in the real world.