RaveThe Paris Review... we are lucky enough to have more of Babitz’s writing to read ... Babitz is at home anywhere, and everywhere she goes she finds the most interesting person, the weirdest place, the funniest throwaway detail. She makes writing seem effortless and fun, which any writer can tell you is the hardest trick of all ... this collection shows Babitz to have been insanely prolific while also attending every good party in the LA hills and many long nights at the Chateau Marmont. The parties are part of her process, just like those long drives to the beach she recommends ... gossip is part of her reporting style, because so much of gossip is news that powerful men don’t want made public; it reveals them as silly, or petty, or cruel. Babitz can’t help but make important men look as silly as they really are. But she isn’t gratuitously cruel. Just as she doesn’t shy away from recording men at their most ridiculous, she doesn’t shy away from objectifying beautiful men (and she does it so much better than anyone else). She’s nobody’s sycophant, and that commands a certain kind of respect from her subjects, who’ve grown used to being sucked up to ... Babitz writes like someone who lives life to its limits ... To read Eve Babitz is to feel like her passenger, cruising down long Hollywood streets through a painted-backdrop sunset toward eternal waves.
