‘Everybody wanted to be me’: Inside Eve Babitz’s private letters
Eve Babitz remains a singular figure in the history of Los Angeles letters. Known for her wit and a life lived with intentional abandon, her latest posthumous collection, Too L.A.: Letters Never Sent (But Some Were), offers a window into the mind of an author who preferred the glossy, superficial surface of Hollywood to the moralizing tone of her contemporaries. Edited by Lili Anolik, the volume gathers nearly 200 letters, most of which were never mailed. These pages trace a trajectory from her youth in the 1950s to the height of her career in the 1970s.
The collection highlights a woman who viewed the world with a distinct set of priorities. Babitz understood that she possessed a specific talent for essays and stories, often playing to her strengths while acknowledging her failures as a novelist. Her writing reflects a self-proclaimed shallow nature, which she wielded as a defensive tool against the cynicism of East Coast critics. She was a daughter of the L.A. sunshine, famously celebrating the city while others looked for gloom. Her letters document affairs with industry giants, nights at the Troubadour, and the professional challenges of balancing personal relationships with journalistic assignments.
Readers will find the expected name-dropping, but the book also contains mundane records of domestic life that clarify her limitations as a writer. Despite the occasional vapidity, the letters capture the energy of a woman who rejected the conventions of her era. She lived with a level of bravado that was both reckless and essential to her work. Whether discussing her career, her struggles with substance use, or her unapologetic pursuit of pleasure, Babitz maintained an autonomy that defined her public and private persona.
While some might argue the collection is overpraised, it serves as a record of a specific cultural moment in California. Babitz eventually stepped away from public life and writing following a tragic accident in 1997, leaving behind a legacy that continues to fascinate. This volume confirms that she treated her life as her primary art form. She was a storyteller who understood that the boundary between private injury and public spectacle was thin, and she navigated that space with a perspective that remains uniquely her own.