Hollywood's Eve Eve Babitz and the secret history of L.A

Vanity Fair contributor Anolik (Dark Rooms) takes on the colorful story of Los Angeles It-Girl and writer Eve Babitz from her heyday in the 1960s and '70s to her unexpected literary emergence in 1974 with her novel Eve's Hollywood. Anolik, who fell in love with Babitz's work after reading her 1977 novel Slow Days, Fast Company decades later, tells readers that she "won't attempt to impose narrative structure and logic on life, which is (mostly) incoherent and irrational," and her book, while not chronological, is entertainingly anecdotal. Babitz-the daughter of Sol Babitz, first violinist for the 20th Century Fox orchestra, and artist Mae Babitz-grew up in a Hollywood Hills home that was visited by such L.A. luminaries as Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe, and Fats Waller. After posing nude for Time photographer Julian Wasser in 1963 at age 20, Babitz achieved notoriety and hung out with artists (Andy Warhol, Salvador DalA-), politicians (Teddy Kennedy), and musicians (Jackson Browne, Stephen Stills, the Eagles). Anolik admiringly looks at Babitz's life, even while revealing careless accidents, such as incurring third-degree burns trying to light a cigar while driving. Perfect for fans of Hollywood in its glory years, this is a biography energetically told. (Jan) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Hero worship meets compelling biography in Vanity Fair contributing editor Anolik's (Dark Rooms, 2015) nonfiction debut.A cultural fixture in Los Angeles in the 1960s and '70s, Eve Babitz (b. 1943) eclipsed the label of groupie. She was a socialite who managed to intertwine herself with Steve Martin, Warren Zevon, Jim Morrison, Yoko Ono, and Andy Warhol, a Hollywood High graduate-turned-author whose teen years defined her writing. She was well-known but also dismissed by some, including novelist Julia Whedon: "I discern in Babitz the soul of a columnist, the flair of a caption writer, the sketchy intelligence of a woman stoned on trivia." However, Anolik shows that Whedon was shortchanging the woman who famously posed nude over a chessboard with Marcel Duchamp (he was clothed). The author is entirely up front about her obsession with her subject. A love for Babitz's writing turned into a deep dive to uncover the woman who pitched her first novel, Travel Broadens, in 1961 to Catch-22 author Joseph Heller with a letter that read, "Dear Joseph Heller, I am a stacked eighteen-year-old blonde on Sunset Boulevard. I am also a writer." As Anolik shares, the provocative message was classic Babitz: "playing the sexy, boobalicious girl." That character certainly made a significant impression during her heyday, but it was Babitz's style and fictive memoirs that defined her as something of a female Hunter S. Thompson, a drugged-out sex kitten with brains. Throughout the book, Anolik shares deep cuts from Babitz's writing and influence over the major players of the era. But as with any dishy tale, there are times when the narrative gets caught in its own name-dropping cyclone and feels just as shallow as some of the stars it portrays. Fortunately, the author counters this problem with a poignant rendering of Babitz's tragedy: a freak fire that destroyed her once-renowned beautybut not her chutzpah.Come for the LA intrigue; stay for the surprising moral of the story. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Hollywood's Eve A Note, Slipped to the Reader Hollywood's Eve isn't a biography--at least not in the traditional sense. It won't attempt to impose narrative structure and logic on life, which is (mostly) incoherent and irrational, lived moment-by-moment and instinctively rather than by grand design and purposefully; or to provide explanations, which (mostly) dull and diminish; or to reach conclusions, which are (mostly) hollow and false. In other words, it doesn't believe, or expect you to, that facts, dates, timelines, firsthand accounts, verifiable sources tell the tale. Here's what Hollywood's Eve is: a biography in the nontraditional sense; a case history as well as a cultural; a critical appreciation; a sociological study; a psychological commentary; a noir-style mystery; a memoir in disguise; and a philosophical investigation as contrary, speculative, and unresolved as its subject. Here's what Hollywood's Eve is above all else: a love story. The lover, me. The love object, Eve Babitz, the louche, wayward, headlong, hidden genius of Los Angeles. A book can be infatuated--hopelessly, helplessly, heedlessly--same as a person. I'm telling you this not as a way of asking for allowances, but for understanding. In the following pages, things might get a little heated, a little weird, a little out of hand. Now you know why. Excerpted from Hollywood's Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L. A. by Lili Anolik All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.