Patti Smith doesn't write like she’s trying to sell you a book. She writes like she’s exhaling. If Just Kids was a vibrant, heartbreaking map of a lost New York and a lost love, her 2015 follow-up, M Train by Patti Smith, is something entirely different. It’s a roadmap of a mind that refuses to sit still, even when the body is just sitting in a cafe drinking black coffee.
It’s about nothing. And it’s about everything.
People often come to this book expecting a rock star’s tell-all. They want the grit of the CBGB era or more stories about Robert Mapplethorpe. Instead, they get a woman obsessed with CSI: Miami, detective novels, and the specific temperature of her coffee. It’s messy. It’s dreamy. Honestly, it’s one of the most honest depictions of the "creative life" ever put to paper because it acknowledges that most of that life is spent staring at walls or traveling thousands of miles to look at a dead writer's chair.
The Geography of a Wandering Mind
In M Train by Patti Smith, the "train" isn't a physical subway line. It's a mental one. The book starts at Café 'Ino in Greenwich Village. This was her home base, her "station." She had a specific table. She had a specific ritual. When the cafe eventually closed, it felt like a death. That’s the kind of stakes we’re dealing with here—the sacredness of the mundane.
Smith takes us on these jagged, non-linear trips. One minute she’s in French Guiana trying to collect stones for Jean Genet, the next she’s in Japan standing at the grave of Akira Kurosawa. There is no traditional "plot." If you’re looking for a three-act structure, you’re going to get lost. But that’s the point. The book mirrors the way we actually think when we’re alone. We drift. We remember a coat we lost in 1978. We wonder if we left the stove on.
She spends a significant amount of time discussing the Continental Drift Club. It sounds like something out of a Pynchon novel, but it’s real—a small group of obscure scientists and enthusiasts dedicated to Alfred Wegener’s theories. Smith attends a meeting in Iceland. Why? Because the atmosphere called to her. She isn't performing for an audience; she's following her own internal compass, which almost always points toward the melancholic and the beautiful.
Loss and the "Black Suit"
You can't talk about this book without talking about Fred "Sonic" Smith. Her late husband is a ghost that haunts every page. But he isn't a heavy, oppressive ghost. He’s a presence in the peripheral vision.
Patti writes about their life in Michigan—the isolation, the children, the shared silence—with a brevity that hurts more than a 500-page eulogy. There’s a specific scene where she talks about losing her favorite black coat. To anyone else, it’s just wool. To her, it’s a talisman. When she loses it, it’s a proxy for all the other things she’s lost that she can't talk about directly. This is the brilliance of M Train by Patti Smith. She uses objects—a camera, a stone, a Polaroid—to anchor emotions that are too big to name.
Why the "Boring" Parts are the Best Parts
Most memoirs edit out the parts where the author watches TV. Smith leans into it. Her obsession with detective shows like The Killing or Law & Order is legendary.
It’s relatable.
There is a profound comfort in watching someone who is considered a high-priestess of punk culture admit that she spent an entire afternoon in a hotel room binge-watching British procedurals. It humanizes the icon. It tells the reader that it’s okay to be unproductive. In fact, for Smith, this "empty" time is where the art comes from. You have to be bored to be creative. You have to let the "M Train" pull into the station and just sit there for a while.
The prose itself is rhythmic. Some sentences are short. Like a heartbeat. Others sprawl out, catching memories of Sylvia Plath or Frida Kahlo’s blue house in Mexico City. She doesn't use big words to sound smart; she uses precise words to stay true. She’s an expert at the "mood." If you read this book on a rainy afternoon with a cup of coffee, the barrier between her world and yours basically disappears.
The House at Rockaway Beach
The closest thing to a "climax" in the book is her impulse purchase of a literal shack.
A crumbling house at Rockaway Beach.
She bought it right before Hurricane Sandy hit. Everyone thought she was crazy. Maybe she was. But the house represented a landing gear. After years of wandering, of staying in hotels where she felt like a ghost, she wanted a place to put her books. The sections dealing with the storm and the resilience of the community are some of the most grounded in the memoir. It shifts the book from a dream-state into a reality-state. It’s about building something when everything else is washing away.
A Quick Reality Check on the Style
Let's be clear: this book isn't for everyone.
If you want a chronological history of the 1970s punk scene, go read Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil or Smith's own Just Kids. This is a book for people who like to browse old bookstores. It’s for people who find themselves crying over a specific line in a poem they don't quite understand.
- Fact: The Polaroids featured in the book are all hers.
- Fact: Café 'Ino was a real place at 21 Bedford Street. It closed in 2013.
- Fact: She really did travel to London just to sit in a room where she could think about the mathematician Alan Turing.
Some critics at the time complained that the book was too self-indulgent. They’re not entirely wrong, but that’s the genre. A memoir is, by definition, an indulgence. The difference here is that Smith’s "self" is so deeply intertwined with the history of art and literature that her indulgence feels like a guided tour of a better world.
Taking Action: How to Read M Train
Don't rush it. This isn't a beach read. It’s a "sit in a corner" read.
If you want to get the most out of the experience, treat it like a sensory exercise. Smith mentions dozens of books and creators—Haruki Murakami, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Jean Genet. Don't just skip over them. Look them up. See what she sees.
- Get a physical copy. The texture of the pages and the inclusion of her grainy, atmospheric Polaroids are essential to the vibe. The Kindle version doesn't do the shadows justice.
- Follow the trail. Use the book as a reading list. If she mentions The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, go find a copy. Her work is a gateway to other works.
- Write in the margins. This is a book about the interior life. Engage with it. Mark the sentences that make you feel less lonely.
- Visit the spots. If you’re in New York, go to the West Village. Walk the streets she walks. See the "Alamo" sculpture (the big black cube) in Astor Place.
What M Train Teaches Us About 2026
In a world that is increasingly loud and digital, M Train by Patti Smith feels like a radical act of silence. It’s a reminder that we don't always have to be "on." We don't have to be productive. We can just be.
She shows us that a life built on coffee, books, and memories isn't a small life. It’s a massive one. It’s a life that can span continents and centuries without ever leaving a wooden chair.
Ultimately, the book is a study in how to stay curious as you get older. Smith doesn't sound jaded. She sounds like a kid who just discovered that the world is full of secrets, and she’s determined to find as many as she can before the sun goes down. She isn't mourning her youth; she’s using the wisdom of her age to appreciate the things she was too busy to notice when she was twenty.
If you feel stuck, or if the world feels a bit too "plastic" lately, pick up a copy. It’s an antidote to the artificial. It’s a reminder that the most interesting journey you’ll ever take is the one that happens entirely inside your own head.
Go find a quiet cafe. Order a black coffee. Open the first page. Let the train leave the station. You’ll find that while the destination is uncertain, the ride is exactly where you’re supposed to be. There is no need to over-analyze the symbolism or look for hidden meanings in every mention of a stray cat or a lost umbrella; just let the atmosphere wash over you. The book ends not with a grand statement, but with a sense of continuing. The train keeps moving, the coffee stays hot, and the mind keeps wandering. That is the only real way to live an artist's life.