BOOK 206: M TRAIN: PATTI SMITH

I’m going to do something a little different for this book review. I will review it, but I will also list all of the references in the book. Patti Smith is an eclectic but prolific purveyor of culture from high-brow art and philosophical references to police procedurals on TV, songs she had stuck in her head and books she is reminded of from childhood. In a labour of love, I’ve tried to document each one. You can use this post as a guide as you’re reading through the book to see a little more information on a person she might reference but you don’t know, or to play a song she mentions. You could also use this as a list of books, films and other things all recommended to you by Patti Smith.

M Train begins in the tiny Greenwich Village café where Smith goes every morning for black coffee, ruminates on the world as it is and the world as it was, and writes in her notebook. Through prose that shifts fluidly between dreams and reality, past and present, we travel to Frida Kahlo's Casa Azul in Mexico; to the fertile moon terrain of Iceland; to a ramshackle seaside bungalow in New York's Far Rockaway that Smith acquires just before Hurricane Sandy hits; to the West 4th Street subway station, filled with the sounds of the Velvet Underground after the death of Lou Reed; and to the graves of Genet, Plath, Rimbaud, and Mishima.

Woven throughout are reflections on the writer's craft and on artistic creation. Here, too, are singular memories of Smith's life in Michigan and the irremediable loss of her husband, Fred Sonic Smith.

Braiding despair with hope and consolation, illustrated with her signature Polaroids, M Train is a meditation on travel, detective shows, literature, and coffee. It is a powerful, deeply moving book by one of the most remarkable multiplatform artists at work today.

MY VERDICT: I adored this book and devoured it quickly. It’s so easy to get swept up in Patti Smith’s writing style. Once you’re through the first chapter you get the tone of the book, part dream diary, part diary, part reminiscence, part poem and full of references to people she admires, books she reads and the TV show she watches. Apart from the coffee drinking, Patti Smith is my spirit animal, and there is a lot of talk about coffee.

I was a major fan of Just Kids and this isn't really that, it’s different, it’s not really telling you a story, it’s taking you along on her journey through life.