Timeless Mind Train
SMITH, Patti. M Train. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2015.
8vo. Plain white wrappers lettered in black; pp. [xii], 253, [23], proposed front cover in sepia tones; very minimal shelfwear and light markings to covers, extremely slight creases to spine ends, otherwise fine.
Prepublication uncorrected proof of Smith's second memoir, named by Smith as "a roadmap to my life".
"Without a doubt we sometimes eclipse our own dreams with reality".
The title of M Train is in reference to Patti Smiths "mind train", described as a tangential motor vehicle which "goes to any station it wants".
Succeeding the National Book Award-winning and bestselling Just Kids, it begins in Greenwich Village, New York in the place Smith frequents for coffee each morning. The book digresses and traverses between time from a meeting of an Arctic explorers' society in Berlin to a visit to Frida Kahlo's Casa Azul to the recounting of personal losses; the tragic death of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in 1989 of Aids and of Smith's husband, the guitarist Frend "Sonic" Smith in 1944 at age 45 and the passing of her brother Todd a mere month after.
Joan Didion would write of M Train, "a book so honest and pure that has to count as a rapture".
Smith's audio book recording of M Train earned a Grammy award nomination for Best Spoken Word Album.
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