A review by chloeyasheckie
Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith

2.0

i loved "just kids" but this book made me want to engage in hand-to-hand combat with patti smith. she writes about 2016 from the lens of grief beginning the year with the brain death (and eventual actual death) of her close friend, moving onto a narrative about another close friend who is rapidly deteriorating from parkinsons, and finally ties it all into the november election. throughout the novel she interweaves a little bit of social commentary revolving around donald trump's campain (mostly through a weird dialogue between her and a man whose actual existence is a little ambiguous) and the entire book is meant to be a reflection of the beginning of the trump era, as she uses her grief and mourning of her friends as a metaphor for the grief and mourning she feels for the loss of the world pre-trump. something about a rich, famous, white woman grieving the world before the trump administration feels so out of touch and almost a little bit ironic. it feels like she believes he kind of just came into power out of nowhere, when it was social and political event hundreds of years in the making, heightened by the fear and nationalism bred by the events of 9/11. in this book, i got the impression that patti was desperately holding onto her identity as the poor person she was in "just kids" despite her upwards of 4 decades of rock-starism and wealth.