Patti Smith: A Biography

Rating:
Summary: A satisfactory overview, until something better comes along.
Review: As with many unauthorized biographies, Nick Johnstone's study of Patti Smith suffers from his lack of access to many of the key figures in her career. Instead, Johnstone attempts to make-do with a host of admiring, but often unconnnected, individuals who offer little beyond their worship and negligible opinions.

That said, Johnstone's book does concentrate information from a variety of largely available sources into a single volume and serves as a passable reference with regard to many key events in Smith's maturation and career. His interpretations of the meaning of lyrics, the choices for cover art, and other "insights", however, are often painful to wade through. Typos, misspellings (Jimmy "Lovine"), and factual errors (who brought "Because the Night" to whom?) are often a distraction and cause one to question the veracity of other "facts" presented. These errors are now more obvious when this work is compared to Patti's own Complete. Nonetheless, Complete does not attempt to approach the detail of this volume, so Johnstone's work will stand until an autobiography or authorized biography comes along.