A simple cup of black coffee may be the ultimate symbol of mundanity.
Plain and pedestrian — black coffee serves as that quick hit of caffeine before a long day of work or a long night of studying.
But in the reflection of the darkness of a simple cup of black coffee, Patti Smith sees a way of life — the life of an artist.
“M Train,” published in 2015, is Smith’s follow-up to her acclaimed 2010 memoir, “Just Kids.” In “Just Kids,” Smith discovers the world she dreamed of as a young girl. Growing up, she was immersed in her novels and elaborate fantasies. She meets the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and tracks their intersecting paths and complex relationship through New York City in the 1960s and 1970s.
“M Train” begins decades after the epilogue of “Just Kids,” which describes Mapplethorpe’s death due to AIDS in 1989 and the passing of Smith’s husband, the guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith, in 1994.
Patti Smith, now living alone in her Greenwich Village apartment, spends much of her time in her favorite corner of the nearby Café ‘Ino. As a young woman growing up in Southern New Jersey, she harbored dreams of opening her own beachfront café for writers and wanderers.
She believed there was nothing more romantic than a simple coffee shop.
At her regular table, Smith drinks copious amounts of black coffee and writes — or tries to write — about the racing disparate thoughts that fill her mind. These thoughts often revolve around memories, loss and belief — as well as about her own art.
Many of the scribbled phrases that Smith first drafted on napkins at Café ‘Ino would later become the basis for “M Train.”
Smith’s writing is hazy and, at times, surreal — which is fitting, considering much of the book consists of her excerpts and snippets from her own dreams.
“M Train” opens inside a dream, as Smith plunges the reader into her psyche without explanation or context. A mysterious cowboy figure — reminiscent of the cowboy in David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive” — makes an equally mysterious statement: “It’s not so easy writing about nothing,” he says.
For the remainder of the memoir’s 280-odd pages, Smith attempts to interrogate this statement — which brings to mind a riddle from the Sphinx or a Zen koan.
Some readers may think that “M Train” is truly “about nothing” — that Smith succeeded in carrying out the cowboy’s difficult task. It certainly doesn’t have a traditional linear narrative or predictable plot beats. It can even feel repetitive at times, and yet it still enhances Smith’s experience of listlessness, grief and what she describes as “melancholia.”
However, the magic of this meditative memoir is found in its “nothingness.”
With Smith’s carefully poetic word choice, the reader is transported effortlessly through time and space. She seamlessly transitions between themes and locations, mirroring the way that the mind can wander when it has time to rest.
I followed her to Berlin, to Tokyo and to the island of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in French Guiana through the words on the page — and I felt like I was trailing closely behind her in every sentence. In each location, a cup of coffee is never far away.
Of course, I spent many an hour in Smith’s beloved Café Ino, where she wrote, thought and dreamed, always with a black coffee and brown bread with olive oil.
After I turned the last page, I felt like I had lived many lifetimes right alongside Smith herself.
“M Train” is interspersed with dozens of grainy Polaroid photos, illustrating several of the locations and objects she describes throughout the memoir. While her writing is evocative enough to stand on its own, the photographs provide yet another layer of richness.
The paraphernalia of many of Smith’s literary idols are captured by her perceptive camera lens. Some of the photos featured Frida Kahlo’s bed in her Mexico City home, known as the “Casa Azul,” Sylvia Plath’s grave in Yorkshire, England and Virginia Woolf’s walking stick — along with items owned by Herman Hesse, Leo Tolstoy and Roberto Bolaño.
Smith’s beloved — and now-defunct — Café ‘Ino is also photographed lovingly, as well as her Rockaway Beach bungalow. And, of course, her trusty at-home coffee maker makes an appearance, too.
If “Just Kids” represents the hopeful romanticism of youth, “M Train” is like its wiser older sister. Immersing myself in its pages was like the fuzzy feeling of dozing off on a winter morning, slipping in and out of dreams and reality, and waking up a bit confused. However, a sense of understanding was always buried under the surface.
Smith is no longer writing from the perspective of the wide-eyed twenty-something of “Just Kids.” She’s left behind the days of stumbling her way through a bohemian maze of revolutionaries and radicals in Andy Warhol’s Factory and the rooms of the Chelsea Hotel.
Her hair has grayed, her husband has passed and her children have moved away. From her trusty chair in Café ‘Ino, Smith has watched the New York City of her early young adulthood morph into something new.
“M Train” may be more complex and reflective than her previous efforts, but it impressively lacks cynicism or world-weariness. Smith is still the same artist dreaming of a humble beachside café — guided by a peaceful spirituality, a boundless imagination and an almost religious pursuit of great art.
After all, who else could see so much magic in a simple cup of black coffee?
