Lili Anolik, author of a new book exploring the parallel lives of Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, joined us to talk about the two literary icons.
, shot standing in front of her Stingray Corvette in another of Wasser’s famous images. Anolik brilliantly uses these two legendary writers and their complicated lives to tell a story not only of what it means to capture a scene and stand in the center of a cultural moment, but also the arduous road of a female writer yearning to be taken seriously.is bound to raise the hackles of some Didion mega-fans, myself included, and one imagines the ensuing debates may even break up friendships.
And then Eve dies, and there are these boxes she’s kept. She lived in such crazy, crazy chaos, and the idea that she would have preserved letters was totally out of the question. And of course, she hadn’t. Her mom had wrapped up these boxes and I think duct-taped them in such a way that you couldn’t just pull it apart.Because if it had been, she would’ve strewn it everywhere. She just couldn’t help herself. The boxes were packed probably in 2000 when Eve moved.
ANOLIK: I feel like she’s a medical marvel. That Troubadour scene was hardcore. Talking in terms of the drugs, Mirandi , who was in a lot of the rock and roll scenes with Eve, said: “I’d have to duck out. Not many women could withstand it. I’d be physically falling apart.” But she said Eve just never did.BOLLEN: I was really intrigued about your idea in the book that both writers are writing about Los Angeles.
BOLLEN: When you were becoming close to Eve at the end of her life, did you feel like you were something of a lifeline?Definitely not. She really was gone. We would have these conversations and sometimes they could be incredible, but I never felt she totally registered me as a human. Her brain really was crumbling. I was very close with her sister and her cousin and boyfriends of hers, and that was my way of being close with her because she really was a posthumous Eve.
ANOLIK: I lived in Los Angeles my first year out of college and I was thrilled to be there. I was working at a management company. It was Michael Ovitz’s post-Disney company called AMG. It’s a secret place with secret enclaves and you need the password to get in. The first time I ever felt like I got into L.A. that way was through Eve. I remember something that Mirandi said to me, how Eve was interested in Hollywood and when Joan went out to Malibu.
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