Highly contrasting memoirs from two female icons of 70s New York – one poetic and dreamlike, the other full of squalid adventure – are equally compelling
Patti Smith and Debbie Harry went to something like rock’n’roll high school together, as the Ramones might have put it. But that’s the only common denominator to be found in their two memoirs. New York in the 70s was a school of hard knocks, from which these fellow travellers emerged with honours of very different sorts.
Both books are highly anticipated, however. Harry’s memoir is her first, correcting an egregious absence. That one of the most famous women in pop should not have recounted her story until now is hard to believe – that is, until you start reading and learn of Harry’s deep reticence at having to rake over the past. She spends a chapter discussing the marvel that is the opposable thumb, as though straining for the word count on a homework assignment.
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