This is going to be a book that I will be talking about a lot. I remember when it came out, thinking it was just a glorified celebrity novel winning undeserved awards. How wrong I was. It is beautiful, in its prose, in the love expressed, in the description on the historic scenery of NYC during that time. An important contribution. On a personal level, for someone who lived with a rockgroup on 6th floor in the lower East in the 90s when New York was still New York, it is priceless. I knew all the places and could picture them perfectly. Not because I read about them in a book, but because with no money, I wandered the streets and took in the places and people. I was also lucky to have seen an exhibition in SFMoma on Patti’s art. Then not knowing much about her. I also had recently bought an LP of Patti’s misic on a whim and loved it. First while reading, I was regretting not having heard this book before all of it. But now I appreciate it all coming together like a collage in my head.