Didion & Babitz

This is such a fun and juicy read. I listened on Audible and would recommend that, as Emma Roberts reads several of the letters. I went into it knowing a decent amount about Joan Didion (if she can even really be known), and very little about Eve Babitz. This is the story of their rivalry (if it can even be called that) and the parallels in their lives. Eve died in 2021 in a filthy apartment. Inside of her apartment was a stack of boxes, pristinely sealed. And inside? A lost world. Letters unsent, from Eve to Joan. Letters that take us back to the late sixties and seventies to the Franklin Avenue scene where writers and artists mixed with movie stars and musicians. It feels like these two women were almost inverses of each other. Joan: mysterious and cool (and ultra-successful); Eve: messy, sexy, wild. The goddaughter of Stravinsky who posed nude playing chess with Marcel Duchamp, who dated Jim Morrison (among many other men). I loved learning their stories (and all of the juicy gossip). I gobbled it up and wanted more. Highly recommend!