Didion & Babitz
National bestseller * Named a best book of the year by Time, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Air Mail, Harper's Bazaar, The Washington Post, and more!
Joan Didion is revealed at last in this "vivid, engrossing" (Vogue), and outrageously provocative dual biography "that reads like a propulsive novel" (Oprah Daily) revealing the mutual attractions—and antagonisms—of Didion and her fellow literary titan, Eve Babitz.
BOOK SUMMARY
Could you write what you write if you weren't so tiny, Joan? —Eve Babitz, in a letter to Joan Didion, 1972. Eve Babitz died on December 17, 2021. Found in the wrack, ruin, and filth of her apartment, a stack of boxes packed by her mother decades before. The boxes were pristine, the seals of duct tape unbroken. Inside, a lost world.
Didion, in spite of her confessional style, is so little known or understood. She’s remained opaque, elusive. Until now.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lili Anolik is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a writer at large for Air Mail. She is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller Hollywood's Eve and Didion and Babitz. Her last podcast, Once Upon a Time…at Bennington College, was produced by Cadence13. In 2024, she was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for profile writing. She lives in New York City with her husband and two sons.
PRAISE
"Anolik brings her journalistic instincts and her deep passion for Didion and Babitz to create a vivid, engrossing work." —Vogue
"Dazzling and provocative . . . I found myself cheering on Anolik's decision to make one more foray into Babitz's glittering, free-falling, unencumbered yet troubled world. Would I want my daughter to follow Babitz's path or Didion's, if given the choice? Probably not Babitz's. But what a ride." —Leigh Haber, The Los Angeles Times
"Anolik unearths a complicated, contentious—and scandalously overlooked—alliance between these two glamorous behemoths of Californian literature. . . . What results is a love letter in the form of this detailed biography that reads like a propulsive novel. You'll be reaching for Didion's and Babitz's books to search for evidence of the messy truths revealed on these pages." —Oprah Daily
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Hardcover
352 Pages
Biography & Autobiography
9 in H | 6 in W | 1.4 in T | 1.1 lb
