I worked under-the-table jobs in London when I was in my early 20s, living in squats or cheap, crowded rental rooms. My version of Manhattan’s famously edgy Chelsea Hotel was a place called Arthog House, just south of the original Chelsea. It was the sort of place where you’d start your day as the only American woman among strangers and end it with a new tribe: allies who’d spot you their scant money and a lover with whom you now shared a mattress on the floor, having entirely skipped over the dating phase and become an instantly symbiotic couple.
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We had vague artistic dreams. At Arthog House, which harbored 11 men and two women, there was a South African circus performer, a brilliant junkie photographer from Georgia, and an Australian woman who made intricate stained glass windows that she had nowhere to hang and simply left behind when she moved on. Nobody owned much, but there were several guitars. We subsisted on cigarettes, tea, frozen vegetables, rice, Southern Comfort, and the hash cakes we called pixie dust bars. As for me, I wanted to be Anaïs Nin, and at night they read my stories.
Just Kids, Smith’s stunning memoir about her lifelong relationship with Mapplethorpe, is a book for everyone who’s ever had a Chelsea Hotel, every seeker who’s ever wanted to be an artist and found unconditional friendship and acceptance along the way.
