One writer's career flourished while the other's didn't, but the lives of Joan Didion and Eve Babitz are, in many ways, inextricably linked, as Lily Anolik shows in Didion & Babitz, her chatty, entertaining follow-up to Hollywood's Eve. Anolik is up-front about her preference. "I've picked my side: Eve's. A no-brainer since I'm crazy for Eve." She calls Babitz "the secret genius of L.A.," whereas, regarding Joan, she writes, "I respect her work rather than like it." Anolik thought she was done with her "unbalanced, fetishistic" obsession until, after Babitz's death in 2021, she discovered a letter Babitz wrote to Didion, which contained surprisingly harsh sentiments toward someone who helped get her work into Rolling Stone and was unofficial editor of Babitz's memoir, Eve's Hollywood. Further discoveries convinced Anolik to revisit Babitz's story and examine more closely Didion's achievements.
The result is this diverting read. Through letters and dozens of interviews, Anolik creates an atmospheric portrait of late 20th-century California. She contrasts party girl and aspiring collagist Babitz, who was unapologetically "a woman in hot sexual pursuit of the men of her era who moved and shook," to the more disciplined Didion, who "worked on her reputation as diligently as she worked on her books." Despite her preference, Anolik is fair-minded about Babitz's writing, calling Eve's Hollywood an immature work with prose that is "baby-fat voluptuous." Readers will choose their sides, too, but everyone will agree that Didion & Babitz is a lively biography. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer