The letters of the queen of the midcentury California scene, gathered here for the first time.

In between the partying, the drugs, the love affairs, the 'squalid overboogie' of it all, Eve Babitz made time to chronicle the world as she saw it in works like Eve's Hollywood; Slow Days, Fast Company and Sex and Rage.

But Babitz considered her letters 'the kind of writing I do best,' calling them 'practically a diary,' and rarely depositing them into a mailbox. Her missives to friends like Joseph Heller, Annie Leibovitz, Paul Ruscha and Steve Martin - fresh and frank, dashing and droll - are irresistible, as highly spirited as they are acutely perceptive.

In Too L.A., Babitz's biographer, Lili Anolik, has performed a remarkable feat, not only raising these letters from the tomb but accompanying them with informative and irreverent commentary, guiding the reader through the uproarious lifelong party that was Eve Babitz's real masterpiece.

Details

ISBN13: 9781805467816
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 432
Edition: Main
Publication Date: 29 Sep 2026
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 23.4(H)x15.6(L)
Weight (gm):

Author Biography

Eve Babitz (1943-2021) was born in Hollywood, California. She played chess naked with Marcel Duchamp,and designed album covers for, among others, Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds, before publishing eight books,including Eve's Hollywood; Slow Days, Fast Company; Sex and Rage and I Used to Be Charming.Lili Anolik was born nowhere near Hollywood, and has never played chess, naked or otherwise. She is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Her most recent book is Didion & Babitz.

Reviews

Lili Anolik calls these letters the author's "most consequential work", and it's hard to disagree while enjoying the bountiful energy that fizzes off every page * TLS *
[Babitz's letters offer] a portrait of an artist in the process of inventing herself... drafting, revising, perfecting, becoming * The Atlantic *
In masterpieces of her own devising, Eve Babitz (persona) is a bona fide sex goddess with Jim Morrison between her thighs. In her private correspondence, Eve Babitz (person) is Bridget Jones on acid * The Spectator *
It might be said of Babitz, as Oscar Wilde said of his life, that she spent her talent on her writing and reserved her genius for her life. Sculpting her natural gifts of wit and brazenness into a living artwork dazzled all who came within her orbit. Her lust for life was palpable. The letters are proof * LA TImes *
On the page, Babitz is pure pleasure - a perpetual-motion machine of no-stakes elation and champagne fizz -- Jia Tolentino * The New Yorker *