Takes us through her teenage years when the first glimmers of art and romance take hold. Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan emerge as creative heroes and role models as Smith starts to write poetry, then lyrics, merging both into the iconic recordings and songs such as Horses and Easter, 'Dancing Barefoot' and 'Because the Night.' She leaves it all behind to marry her one true love, Fred 'Sonic' Smith, with whom she creates a life of devotion and adventure on a canal in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. As Smith suffers profound losses, grief and gratitude are braided through years of caring for her children, rebuilding her life, and, finally, writing again"--
Mesmerizing ... Her extraordinary artist’s eye and soulful nature emerged at an age when the rest of us were still content to simply play in our sandboxes ... Losses haunt the memoir; she grapples with them by returning to the stage with a fierce new hunger.
If Bread of Angels lacks the strong coming-to-New York plot line of Just Kids, it feels more intimate than either of its predecessors, which are both graced and obscured by Smith’s enigmatic writing style ... [A] greater degree of openness ... Isn’t perfect. There’s a structural awkwardness about the way Smith has to leapfrog over those early New York years...lest she repeat herself. But those of us who love Smith — and we are legion — don’t love her because she or her art is perfect. We love her because of her aura of rough authenticity, her earnestness, her seer’s way with words and her occasional snarl.
