Immediacy has its allure, but some things become deeply burnished only by the passing of the years. Patti Smith probably knew this when she decided to tell the story of her love affair with Robert Mapplethorpe–40 years after they met, and more than two decades after his death. Just Kids, a memoir of youth, love, and loss–and an elegy to a New York long gone–won the National Book Award for non-fiction this past week. Some good things, it seems, do come to those who wait to tell all.
