Looking for your next read? Welcome to Bazaar Book Chat, an inside look at our editors’ Slack channel, where we candidly review the latest literary releases.
Rosa Sanchez (senior news editor)
Hi @here Welcome to another edition of Bazaar Book Chat! This November, we read Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik. This one was very different from the others we’ve read in Book Chat, as it’s based on real-life literary icon Joan Didion and real-life ’60s-’70s It girl, artist, and writer Eve Babitz.
I’m sure we all have a lot of thoughts. I feel like we should start with the way Anolik chose to approach this story. She takes two very different people, Didion and Babitz, and shows where their lives overlap and contrast. She treats them like two halves of a full moon—both interesting and magnificent in their own right, but not truly complete without the other. What did you think about the way Anolik approached the storyline?
Joel Calfee (editorial and social media assistant)
Anolik definitely took a unique approach with the format! She notes early on that the book works in two ways—as a linear timeline and as a collection of moments that continue circling back/repeating throughout the story, and I thought that was very true and an interesting way to frame Joan and Eve’s story. As someone who didn’t know a lot of this history going into the book, I got a *little confused at times, but I appreciated the fresh approach. 👆3
Izzy Grinspan (editorial director)
I have SO MANY thoughts! She obviously favors Eve, but she also admits to that, which I appreciated. I wound up liking the looping, recursive storytelling, especially knowing that this is Anolik’s second book about Eve. It’s hard to do two books in chronological order about the same person. But it also mimicked the feeling of having someone tell you stories about their life, and returning over and over to the big moments. ❤️3
In that way, I got the sense that it may have sort of recreated what it must have felt like to actually interview Eve.
Joel Calfee
I also like how the writing switched between detailed accounts of Joan and Eve’s lives to moments where the reader feels like they’re sitting in the room while Anolik is interviewing her subjects. (Eve seems like she’s a tough interviewee and I loved getting those details.) ❤️1
Rosa Sanchez
We do know Anolik from her first book about Eve, Hollywood’s Eve, a deep-dive into who Eve was and why she was so fabulous. Throughout this book, thought, I agree she makes her obsession with her very clear again. And even picks Eve’s side many times, even though no one is asking her to...? I thought it was funny sometimes, but also, did anyone find it strange that she constantly talks about Joan and Eve as if they had always been in competition and remain in competition even in death?❗️3
Izzy Grinspan
Yes! It’s not a competition. Although it does make me want to ask everyone in the room which team you’re on... 😈 😂2
Rosa Sanchez
I did find myself relating to each woman in different ways. And it ended up making sense to me how they could seem like two sides of the same coin. Or, like the little angel and the little devil on our shoulders.
Joel Calfee
Also, not to stir up trouble, but I feel like Joan was always a way bigger name than Eve (at least in my opinion), so I felt like the competition was even more nebulous to me when reading this book. Like it does feel somewhat built up for the drama.❗️2
Izzy Grinspan
To me there are two things going on here: There’s our cultural tendency to pit women against each other, but then there’s also this metaphor she’s trying to draw about different ways to be a woman.👆2
Rosa Sanchez
Agree, @Joel Calfee! And yessss @Izzy Grinspan.
Izzy Grinspan
It’s very Black Swan—you can either be chaotic Eve or ambitious Joan. 👏1
Ariana Marsh (senior features editor)
Yes! That is exactly how I felt reading this.❗️2
Izzy Grinspan
The party girl or the buttoned-up one.🪩2
Rosa Sanchez
I will say I’ve always loved Joan Didion, and it was super interesting to me, more than anything else in this book, to see her humanized and represented the way that she was. She was cold and calculated, and smart, and petite, and knew how to brand herself, and was so careful about her image. And it was fun to think about her friendship with the obviously chaotic Eve. I feel like when we got a peek at their interactions, I could imagine what one was thinking about the other at all times.❤️1
Izzy Grinspan
I wanted more of their friendship!❗️1
Joel Calfee
Yes!! I was dying to see more of their friendship too.
Izzy Grinspan
I imagine that may have been very hard to research, but to me what this book was lacking was scenes where the two of them actually were in the same room, having a good time together.
Rosa Sanchez
Same! More like the random phone call they shared at the end.
Faith Brown (senior social media manager)
Agree, agree.
Izzy Grinspan
You get that with other people, like Eve and Jim Morrison (I’m still haunted by that scene where Jim Morrison is yelling at the record executives and everyone’s ignoring him because he no longer looks like a hot rock god).🥲1
But not so much Joan and Eve.
Rosa Sanchez
Yes! Though I loved all the goss we got from the men in their lives. Eve seemed like a fun time.🎉1
Ariana Marsh
Okay, Harrison Ford being a weed dealer!❗️2
Rosa Sanchez
And a carpenter!❗️2
Jil Derryberry (research chief)
The mention that he built Joan Didion’s pool deck?!❗️2
Rosa Sanchez
Loved that.
Ariana Marsh
That was exciting to read haha⭐️2
Izzy Grinspan
Michelle Phillips seeing him in Star Wars and going, “Wait, why is my drug dealer in this movie” really sent me.😂2
Joel Calfee
The photo of Harrison Ford when he was the pot dealer—I screamed.😂2
Rosa Sanchez
There was so much good Hollywood gossip just thrown in there casually.
Ariana Marsh
Learning intimate details about all of these very famous people felt like being let in on a batch of secrets. It was so fun.⭐️3
Faith Brown
Yes! I also really loved the way she used these two women to contextualize a really specific time in history, I learned a lot about them but also just a lot about the scene in general which was so fun.⭐️1
Rosa Sanchez
The scene was so fun, and I found it interesting how we, today, glamorize that era so much, while Eve glamourized an earlier era, like Paris in the ’20s.⭐️1
Rosa Sanchez
The grass is always greener.
Joel Calfee
Yes! I thought it was interesting how Eve always wanted to recreate the magic of The Moveable Feast. But, meanwhile, she was constantly surrounded by cultural icons and famous people... like, her life was the equivalent of that!❗️2
Izzy Grinspan
One thing I really appreciated about this book was the way Anolik keeps reminding us that Eve was an artist, and that Marilyn Monroe was an artist—that these women who have so often been dismissed because of their looks and their relationship to famous men were just as creative and talented.💯2
Also, that Joan was much more bourgeois despite HER immense talent.
Rosa Sanchez
Yes, the comparisons to Marilyn were interesting, and made a lot more sense toward the end, when we see Eve’s decline and drug issues. 💯2
And yeah, she made Joan look very elitist, but can't help but admit she was a once-in-a-generation talent. 💯1
Also! While I didn’t LOVE how much Anolik inserted herself in the story (I get it, but sorry), it was so real when she details how when she actually met Eve, she was this kind of crazy, disheveled older woman (who was randomly super intro Trump?) and she noted that she chooses to remember her like the glitzy, creative, fun Eve she heard about through people who knew and loved her. I think that’s so often how we feel about people as time passes. ❤️1
Joel Calfee
Never meet your heroes!❗️1
Rosa Sanchez
OMG, when Eve told her she wanted to find a blouse to color of Melania’s eyes 😭.
Izzy Grinspan
That section was so hard to read.❗️2
Faith Brown
Who would you guys rather have a drink with? Eve or Joan? (Sorry to sidetrack the intelligent convo).
Izzy Grinspan
No, I love this question! Also my answer is Nora Ephron lol.
Rosa Sanchez
I mean Joan being an alcoholic was a silently dramatic deet, So, Eve, But actually her bisexual lover man seemed great too. And Harrison Ford.
Joel Calfee
I think I would've been obsessed with Eve back in the day. She was giving me Samantha Jones, LOL.
Rosa Sanchez
100% the OG.
Would you guys recommend? Any final thoughts?
Faith Brown
Yes, I’m recommending! Wait, I feel I have to show you guys the Didion shrine on my bookshelf. She really is my fav.
❗️2 ❤️2
Rosa Sanchez
Team Didion, @Faith Brown!
Joel Calfee
OMG, I’m obsessed with that.
Izzy Grinspan
I found Anolik’s voice to be a bit much at times, especially in a book about Joan Didion, the queen of spare prose. But, I am glad I read this book. I’m pretty much always up for spending some time in 1970s Hollywood, and I thought the research was incredible.💯3
Rosa Sanchez
Agreed. I loved feeling like a guest in that era, and getting to know more about these women.
Joel Calfee
I would recommend! If you’re a fan of celebrity culture or just looking for a well-researched, crazy slice of rock-and-roll history (that focuses on two incredible female artists), then it’s a great read!⭐️2
Jil Derryberry
Also, buy Eve’s Hollywood for yourself for Christmas!
Izzy Grinspan
YES @Jil Derryberry it’s so fun. I read it on vacation in L.A., which I highly recommend.❤️1
Jil Derryberry
I also just picked up a copy of Play It As It Lays—can’t wait to read.
Faith Brown
I also think people should read books by the authors themselves! I love Sex and Rage by Babitz. And Play It As It Lays is my favorite by Didion.❤️2
Bazaar Book Chat is taking a break for December. Thank you for joining us this year, and see you in 2025!