Bread of Angels

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'God whispers through a crease in the wallpaper', writes Patti Smith in this moving account of her life. Her childhood imagination blossoms in the condemned housing complex where Smith grows up. Captain of her loyal sibling army, she vanquishes bullies, communes with the king of tortoises and searches for sacred silver pennies. We follow Smith through her teen years and creative evolution: Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan emerge as early influences, poetry collides with performance, leading to a rock and roll band and the recording of Horses. Smith leaves public life to marry her one true love, Fred Sonic Smith. On a canal in St Clair Shores, they build a home and start a family while each day she enters a room of her own at dawn to write. When her reverie is shattered by a series of profound losses, Smith cares for her children in the aftermath; slowly, she begins to write again. Both a prequel and sequel to Just Kids, this memoir is an ode to love, sacrifice and the artist's calling.