Patti Smith’s Bestselling Memoir Just Kids to Be Adapted by Showtime

In 2010, rock icon Patti Smith ignited the literary scene with her memoir Just Kids — an artistic bildungsroman that focused on Smith’s relationship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe during the sixties and seventies. By 2011, Just Kids had won the nonfiction National Book Award and been named a New York Times bestseller. And now Smith’s story will take shape again, in the form of a limited-run series on Showtime.

The project was announced at the Television Critics Association Press Tour. Smith — who will produce and co-write the series — extolled the virtues of the miniseries format.

“A limited series on Showtime will allow us to explore the characters more deeply, enabling us to develop stories beyond the book and allow a measure of unorthodox presentation,” says Smith. “The medium of a television limited series offers narrative freedom and a chance to expand upon the themes of the book.”

One hopes that Smith’s encounters with Janis Joplin and William Burroughs — described in the book — will be among the anecdotes tapped for adaption.

The premiere date for the show has not yet been set, nor have leads been cast. Fans looking to get their Smith fix in the near future should set their sights on the sequel to Just Kids — M Train, slated for release on October 6.