Eve in her 50s.
Happy Eve Babitz Day! As a Gen Xer forced to spend hundreds of dollars I didn’t have in the 90s to track down Eve Babitz’s out-of-print books, there’s a part of me that’s irritated the millennial girls think they’ve discovered the brilliant writer, groupie-adventuress, and auto-muse. Just a tiny part, though, because everyone should have an Eve who gives Lilith a run for her money. Every female-identified person in particular should have a star-fucking, bridge-burning, convention-flouting, binary-busting, sexy and smart, lush and arch, totally mean and totally kind, self-identified-spinster role model like Evie. So I’m glad she is finally back in print and translated into billions of tongues. (She always was good with tongues.)
In celebration of her birthday today–with all that practical magic, of course she’s a Taurus goddess–I’ve been rereading all her newly re-released books. In them I recognize a languid self-reckoning I never would have grasped at age 10, when I first read Slow Days, Fast Company, or even at age 30. What I see now is that rare woman who understands self-enchantment is the very opposite of both-coast narcissism, and that authenticity has nothing to do with facts. Thank Goddess for such an Eve.
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For a recently revised essay I wrote about Babitz’s wonderfully stubborn magic, click here.