Listen free for 30 days

  • Devotion

  • Written by: Patti Smith
  • Narrated by: Patti Smith
  • Length: 2 hrs and 8 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (10 ratings)

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Devotion cover art

Devotion

Written by: Patti Smith
Narrated by: Patti Smith
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $17.51

Buy Now for $17.51

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

A work of creative brilliance may seem like magic - its source a mystery, its impact unexpectedly stirring.

How does an artist accomplish such an achievement, connecting deeply with an audience never met? In this groundbreaking book, one of our culture's beloved artists offers a detailed account of her own creative process, inspirations, and unexpected connections.

Patti Smith first presents an original and beautifully crafted tale of obsession - a young skater who lives for her art, a possessive collector who ruthlessly seeks his prize, a relationship forged of need both craven and exalted. She then takes us on a second journey, exploring the sources of her story. We travel through the South of France to Camus' house, and visit the garden of the great publisher Gallimard where the ghosts of Mishima, Nabokov, and Genet mingle. Smith tracks down Simone Weil's grave in a lonely cemetery, hours from London, and winds through the nameless Paris streets of Patrick Modiano's novels. Whether writing in a cafe or a train, Smith generously opens her notebooks and lets us glimpse the alchemy of her art and craft in this arresting and original book on writing.

The Why I Write series is based on the Windham-Campbell Lectures, delivered annually to commemorate the awarding of the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes at Yale University.

©2017 Patti Smith (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

What listeners say about Devotion

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant and humble

A stunning window into one writer's process. An honour to hear her read it. Grateful.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Patti Smith Conjures a New Golden Genre

In Devotion, Patti Smith performs literary alchemy as fiction and nonfiction conjure gleaming gold. Smith begins and ends with invigorating insight into the act of writing, takes us back in time to the cafe she nearly realized and on a risky pilgrimage with Fred Sonic Smith to visit a penal colony in French Guyana, gathering symbolic souvenirs for Jean Genet in an enlightened travelogue, and on a book tour in France. Inspired by figure skating seen on seatback TV in her travels, Smith also spins a many figure-eighted tale of Eugenia, an inspired skater who is offered the freedom to practice her passion year-round at the cost of chains. To hear her rapturous writing in her own vivid voice is nothing short of incredible. One comes away grateful to live in such an age and in the living company of a luminescent mind that deserves to glow for all time.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Deeply Drawn

I enjoy the deep world of this author's mind. Giving the reader tools to view life on a more tactile way.
Patti Smith always leaves me wanting more. There for her body of written art is my re read treasure.
For anyone wanting to view life, humans, surroundings in a more fascinating , less judgemental way, only the truest, emotional revealing way.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!