Bread of Angels

“An expansive cradle-to-late-life account of Smith’s experiences over eight decades. One of the marvels of ‘Bread of Angels’ is that. . . . it is remarkably fresh, with long sections on subjects about which Smith has rarely written or even said much publicly . . . enlightening.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Smith’s incantatory voice shines through in this surprisingly revelatory follow up . . . It could be described as Just Kids’ prequel and sequel, moving from Smith’s hardscrabble childhood to the near-present, where a striking twist takes the narrative back to her literal conception . . . casts a potent spell, and you’ll learn as much about the artist from her style as from the stories themselves.”—The Guardian

“Bread of Angels is Smith’s most straightforwardly autobiographical book to date . . . her focus this time is her trajectory from a working-class childhood in Pennsylvania and south Jersey into her stage and recording career—which she put on hiatus during her marriage and reignited during her widowhood . . . Veers between elegy and engagement.”—NPR

“Some of the National Book Award winner’s most intimate recollections to date—as sweeping in scope as they are pivotal to understanding the woman behind the accolades.”—The Hollywood Reporter

“Robert Mapplethorpe took this photograph at a deeply transitional moment. It was between the end of my public life as a performer and the beginning of my time in Detroit with my one true love, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith. Robert had taken an image with doves for the cover of the album Wave. Afterwards, I asked him to take another that would reflect the sentiment of the song ‘Dancing Barefoot,’ a love song for Fred and a farewell to the people. This is the photograph he took.”—Vanity Fair

“Bread of Angels augments the list of romantically crumbling places that Smith treasures. Riveting . . .We love her because of her aura of rough authenticity, her earnestness, her seer’s way with words and her occasional snarl.”—The Washington Post

“A fantastic read—a portrait of an artist who was at the heart of New York’s counter-cultural scene in the 1970s. Smith writes with her usual vividness about her upbringing. But what radiates most from the book is how she developed her artistic passions from a really young age.”—BBC

“An intimate journey through Smith’s life.”—People

“Mesmerizing. Transcendent. Like Jeanette Walls’ classic, The Glass Castle, Smith’s saga begins with a hardscrabble childhood . . . and unfolds as a bohemian fairy tale. . . . I wish I could simply reprint those pages here—they moved me deeply.”—Los Angeles Times

“If Just Kids is about innocence and ambition, Bread of Angels—a sister to that book . . . deals with the more painful realities of experience. She fills in what the earlier memoir leaves in the background: her childhood, her marriage, her fame . . . Near the end of our conversation, Smith brought up her desire, invoked early in her memoir, to write something in which everyone would find a piece of themselves.’”—The Atlantic