Nov 09, 2025
3 min read
Music legend Patti Smith reveals never-before-seen family secrets in her highly anticipated memoir, Bread of Angels.The singer talks about the creation of the book and why she decided to share the truth now.
Patti Smith Reveals the Daughter She Placed for Adoption Helped Uncover the Truth About Her Biological Father (Exclusive) The music legend opens up to about sharing never-before-told family secrets in her highly anticipated memoir, 'Bread of Angels' By Colleen Kratofil Colleen Kratofil Colleen Kratofil is the Senior Editor, TV at PEOPLE. Editorial Guidelines Updated on November 4, 2025 10:10AM EST 7 Comments Patti Smith in 2024. Credit : Marilla Sicilia/Archivio Marilla Sicilia/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty NEED TO KNOW Patti Smith speaks candidly with about the making of her new memoir, Bread of AngelsIn the book, she discloses never-before-shared family secrets and explains why she decided to open up nowBread of Angels is available wherever books are sold Patti Smith didn't plan to write another memoir. The godmother of punk, who broke into the music scene in the '70s with her debut album, Horses, and later set the literary world on fire with her National Book Award-winning 2010 memoir, Just Kids, never saw herself writing another nonfiction piece of work. "I wrote [Just Kids] for Robert [Mapplethorpe] because he asked me to, just hours before he died. And I labored on that book for a long time, and did learn how to write a book such as that, but I hadn't planned to write another," Smith tells exclusively of the artist and her dear friend. This time, she was inspired by a dream she had 10 years ago. "In my dream, I received a package, and it was a white book, and it had a white ribbon and photographs of dresses that I had owned in my life. My wedding dress, the dress that Robert gave me, the white dress my brother gave me that's on the cover of Wave. And they were all attached to stories about my life, and it was such a beautiful book, and when I woke up, my hands were extended. I was still holding it in my mind when I woke up." She knew it was more than a dream. It was a sign: "I felt like it was some part of me telling me that this was a book that I had to write." Bread of Angels: A Memoir by Patti Smith. Random House Publishing Group Bread of Angels, published Nov. 4 by Random House, takes readers on an intimate journey throughout Smith's life. It travels from the day she was born during a Chicago blizzard, to her years gaining notoriety with her band, falling in love with her husband, Fred Sonic Smith, and retreating to a quiet life in Michigan to raise her two children, Jackson, 43, and Jesse, 35. The book describes how different dresses connect with different parts of her life, as she honors the that shaped who she is today. "I found that it was a way to give life to the that I've loved and lost, just like I did Robert," she explain. "My parents, my brother, my siblings, my bandmates, Fred." Our new app is here! Free, fun and full of exclusives. Scan to download now! She also shares never-before-seen revelations about her life, including her discovery that the man who raised her, was not, in fact, her biological father. On an early autumn day in 2002, Smith received her "daily call" from her mother. They talked about the fact that Smith's voice was deepening and she'd have to change the key to some songs. When her mother joked she'll sound like her soon, her mother revealed she had "a story "to tell her "about genetics" the next time they were together. The next time she saw her mother, however, it was in a hospital, after her mother had suffered a fall, hit her head, and had an operation for a blood clot. Smith says she was never the same, and when she tried to ask about genetics, her mother "stared at me blankly." Smith shared that her maternal great-grandmother had long questioned the singer's paternity. She suspected Smith was actually fathered by her son (Smith's great-uncle). But the idea was "waved away" by both of her parents. In 2012, Smith and her sister, Linda, took a DNA test and learned they were half-sisters. "We wept," Smith wrote in her memoir. "The results of our test put a great strain on my thought processes and for some time, I was unable to write. Every morning, without fail, I had sat in a local café with my notebook and coffee, now I was obliged to question the validity of what I had written." The Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now! As Smith grappled with the news, she wrote, "I had all but accepted the fact that I was fathered by my mother’s Uncle Joe, and fully expected the results to confirm it." But she and Linda decided to take an autosomal DNA test, to track the genetic origins of her mother’s side. The results, delivered on Smith's 70th birthday, revealed that her father's side was "100% Ashkenazi." Her ancestors were from Russia, who later fled to Ukraine and settled in Philadelphia. But who was her father? The way Smith eventually discovered the truth was thanks to the daughter she placed for adoption when she was 20 years old. Patti Smith on March 26, 2025. Al Pereira/WireImage Smith and her daughter, who had reunited in the years prior and was "embraced into our fold," used the skills that brought her to Smith to pinpoint the identity of her mother's biological father. After her daughter sleuthed out the name, Smith did a lot of internet searching to find a photo of her father, Sidney. "I knew he was my father before I saw his face," she wrote. Never miss a story — sign up for 's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories. She tracked down a first cousin, who shared insight into her biological roots, revealing Sidney died young, and though his widow lived to her 90s, Smith had made her discovery too late to meet her. Smith tells she took two years off from working on Bread of Angels to process what she learned. "I wasn't sure what to do with this information, because I wanted the book I was writing to be very truthful, and all of a sudden, I had a parallel truth," she says. "And I felt if I didn't write about it, then it felt like truth was compromised." Lenny Kaye and Patti Smith at Brooklyn Steel on December 29, 2023 in Brooklyn. Sacha Lecca/Rolling Stone via Getty She also wanted to honor the man that gave her life. "As I was expressing gratitude to anyone else, I wanted to acknowledge him," she says. "He's also someone that was barely remembered. He had no children. His surrounding family was small, and he's not someone that would be remembered pretty much by anyone. So I wanted to rectify that." The author and singer talks lovingly about her mother, Beverly, and Grant, the man that raised her. In fact, she thinks honoring Sidney is what they would have wanted too. "I was brought up in such an open and humanist atmosphere that I know that my mother and father would appreciate that," Smith says. That doesn't mean she isn't realistic about the toll it took emotionally. "I was sad to not be Grant's biological daughter. I was sad to only have my sister, Linda, as a half sister, but in the end, it doesn't matter," Smith says. "Our love for each other, my love for my father, eclipses blood, and my love for my sister eclipses blood." Related Stories Patti Smith Celebrates 'Raucous and Sublime' Band R.E.M. on Their 42nd Anniversary Johnny Depp Celebrates Patti Smith by Performing Onstage with Bruce Springsteen and More in N.Y.C. When reflecting on the way her oldest daughter helped lead her to the truth about her biological father, she quotes a phrase from William Blake's The Tyger: "Fearful symmetry." "Symmetry in life can seem frightening or like fate has already designed everything," she says. "But in other ways, it can seem quite beautiful. My daughter is very, very private, and I honored her privacy in the book, but I still wanted to acknowledge that she's part of our family and loved, and that she was the one who really helped. It was a lot of sleuthing, a lot of detective work, a lot of following different bloodlines. But in the end, we found the exact person. It's kind of a miracle, really." That way of thinking is one she hopes to share with anyone else going through a similar situation. "It took me a while to really figure all this out, figure out how to present the story in the best light," Smith says. "I've met a lot of where this has happened to them, and they have felt very angry and bitter. They feel like they were lied to, they feel angry at their mother and I thought maybe if I presented a different way to look at it, it would be helpful." Bread of Angels is available now, wherever books are sold. Close Leave a Comment Read more: Entertainment Books Memoirs
