Legendary artist, poet, and musician Patti Smith will publish her new memoir Bread for Angels on November 4th, 2025—a date rich with personal meaning. Chosen by her publisher without realizing its significance, it marks both the birthday of Smith’s lifelong friend and collaborator, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, and the anniversary of the passing of her husband, musician Fred “Sonic” Smith.
In this most intimate of her memoirs, Smith reflects on her childhood, the ascent to punk-rock fame, and her eventual retreat from the public eye to live a life devoted to love, family, and creativity. Written over the course of a decade, she describes it as a work born from “the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime,” hoping readers will find within it something essential for themselves.
Patti Smith new memoir: a journey through love, art, and loss
Bread for Angels traces Smith’s story from her post–World War II childhood in a condemned housing complex, through her teenage years when poetry and music began to take root, to the recording of her iconic albums Horses, Easter, and Wave. It also chronicles her life with Fred “Sonic” Smith in Michigan, where they built a home filled with devotion, creativity, and a shared sense of adventure.
The memoir does not shy away from moments of grief, reflecting on profound personal losses, but it intertwines them with gratitude, resilience, and the transformative power of art. Whether navigating public stages or private spaces, Smith remains guided by a deep faith in the imagination’s ability to turn pain into hope.
Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe: a friendship immortalized
The cover of Bread for Angels features a photograph taken by Robert Mapplethorpe in 1979. Captured during the same session that produced the cover of Wave, the image was shot in the penthouse apartment of Mapplethorpe’s close friend and patron, Sam Wagstaff. Smith recalls that after the formal shoot, she asked Mapplethorpe to take one final picture—something quieter, more personal.
Wearing a small white dress gifted to her by her brother Todd, she stood for a portrait meant to embody “the most beautiful aspect of renunciation—renunciation for love, for God, for the self.” The image, steeped in intimacy and artistic trust, stands as a testament to the enduring creative bond between Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe—a friendship that shaped them both and continues to inspire.
