The publication date Patti Smith chose for her latest memoir, Bread of Angels, is not just happenstance: Nov. 4 is the day her husband Fred "Sonic" Smith died (in 1994), and the birthday of her comrade-in-arts, Robert Mapplethorpe (in 1946). Both men died in their 40s, "the love of my life and the artist of my life," the celebrated punk rock star and author writes.

Bread of Angels is Smith's most straightforwardly autobiographical book to date. It touches on material she's written about before, but her focus this time is her trajectory from a working class childhood in Pennsylvania and south Jersey into her stage and recording career — which she put on hiatus during her marriage and reignited during her widowhood. The title Bread of Angels refers to the "unpremeditated gestures of ki

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