Too L.A.

In between the partying, the drugs, the love affairs, the 'squalid overboogie' of it all, Eve Babitz made time to chronicle the world as she saw it in works like Eve's Hollywood; Slow Days, Fast Company and Sex and Rage. But Babitz considered her letters 'the kind of writing I do best,' calling them 'practically a diary,' and rarely depositing them into a mailbox. Her missives to friends like Joseph Heller, Annie Leibovitz, Paul Ruscha and Steve Martin - fresh and frank, dashing and droll - are irresistible, as highly spirited as they are acutely perceptive. In Too L.A., Babitz's biographer, Lili Anolik, has performed a remarkable feat, not only raising these letters from the tomb but accompanying them with informative and irreverent commentary, guiding the reader through the uproarious lifelong party that was Eve Babitz's real masterpiece.

Eve Babitz (1943-2021) was born in Hollywood, California. She played chess naked with Marcel Duchamp, and designed album covers for, among others, Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds, before publishing eight books, including Eve's Hollywood; Slow Days, Fast Company; Sex and Rage and I Used to Be Charming. Lili Anolik was born nowhere near Hollywood, and has never played chess, naked or otherwise. She is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Her most recent book is Didion & Babitz.