Patti Smith has just released a new memoir titled Bread of Angels. The autobiography includes a surprising revelation about her family history that she discovered while writing the book.
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The 78-year-old music star, poet, and author took a DNA test on her 70th birthday, and found out that the man who raised her, Grant Smith, wasn’t her biological father.
Smith discussed the revelation in a new interview about her book with CBS Mornings. As the segment explained, Patti’s biological dad turned out to be a man named Sydney, a handsome Jewish pilot with dark, wavy hair who had died in 1965.
She told CBS journalist Anthony Mason, “It was like when people say, ‘I never saw that coming.’ I never saw it coming.”
Smith also noted that it took a couple years to track down her father’s identity. She admitted that finding out the information led to a delay in her finishing Bread of Angels.
“The book took longer to write, ’cause I put it away for over two years, because I had to process that,” she explained. “And also, I had to decide, ‘What do I do with that information? Do I hide it?’ But then I thought, ‘You know, one of the things my goal in writing this book was to give certain people that I loved life. It’s a book of gratitude. And … he gave me life with my mother. The two of them gave me life. How could I keep that a secret?”
Bread of Angels was released on Tuesday, November 4, and can be purchased now.
More Details About Patti Finding Out About Her Biological Father
Smith went into more details about the discovery of her biological father in an exclusive interview with People magazine.
Patti noted that during a 2002 phone call with her mother, her mother said she had a story to tell her “about genetics” the next time they spoke. Unfortunately, Smith’s mother hit her head in a fall not long after that and never shared the story she had hinted at.
Then, in 2012, Smith and her sister, Linda, took DNA tests and discovered they actually were half-sisters. In addition, Patti’s great-grandmother had long suspected that her own son, Smith’s great-uncle, was Patti’s biological father.
After taking another DNA test when she was 70, Smith found out more details about her biological father with help from the daughter she’d given up for adoption when she was about 20 years old. The daughter used some of same techniques she used to find Patti to discover information about Smith’s biological dad.
Regarding her decision to include the story in Bread of Angels, Smith told People, “As I was expressing gratitude to anyone else, I wanted to acknowledge [Sidney]. 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.”
Reflecting on the discovery about biological dad, Patti admitted, “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. Our love for each other, my love for my father, eclipses blood, and my love for my sister eclipses blood.”
More About Bread of Angels
Bread of Angels features Smith delving into various periods of her life. The book includes her recollections about her childhood in Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey; her teenage years, when she began to develop a passion for art and music; her emergence as a punk icon; her hiatus from music and her time raising a family in Michigan; and more.
Smith’s Upcoming Tour Plans
Smith will soon kick off a U.S. fall tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of her 1975 debut album, Horses. The trek gets underway on November 12 in Seattle and runs through a November 29 concert in Philadelphia.
You can check out her full schedule at PattiSmith.net.
In October, Smith released a deluxe reissue of Horses. The expanded collection features a newly remastered version of the original album, and an extra disc of outtakes and other rarities.
(Photo by Jim Dyson/Getty Images)
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