Lili Annolik knows the truth. Eve was serious about her art. (p. 39). The author drives this point nicely throughout Hollywood’s Eve, infusing her writing with details and footnotes that give Eve’s work and character dimension beyond the surface. Beauty…
Reactions to Hollywood’s Eve
When reading Eve’s Hollywood, I kept marveling at how little Eve talked about her parents, her siblings. There are the two chapters up front about her grandparents but she does not dissect her family of origin in the way most…
Reading Response of Hollywood’s Eve
In her note to the reader, Lili Anolik mentioned that this book, Hollywood’s Eve, is a biography in the non-traditional sense —a case history as well as a cultural; a critical appreciation; a sociological study; … a memoir in disguise;…
Eve’s Hollywood/Hollywood’s Eve: The Beauties of Johnson/The Life of Johnson?
Despite the pretence of being a chatty, non-academic biography, Hollywood’s Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A. demonstrates the best of historical analysis. Hat’s off to the author for great research and insightful writing combined with a…
Eve’s Hollywood – Reflections
It is no doubt the Eve Babitz is a gifted and, dare I say, “sensual” writer. Almost every chapter oozes with seduction and provocation. I was immediately drawn in – wanting to know more about her. But then I got…
On the dedication
I want to talk about the dedication. A whole genre of life writing, of autobiography: the people you’d thank. The wild ellipses (the “can’t even put a man’s initials” or enrage a wife…) and implications, the private jokes made public…
Thoughts on Eve’s Hollywood
While Eve sees some people, especially men, men as adventures territory to conquer, her early experiences lead her to keep some restraint, getting as close as possible but not enough to experience the often life and death negative consequences. The…
Talking About Ourselves – Reader Response from Sandy Jimenez
Eakins offers a lot of science, philosophy, and theory in support of the idea that persons fashion the stories of themselves, and in turn, how personal self-narrative and story can make a person, which I found fascinating, but his listing…
Eve’s Hollywood – Reader Response from Sandy Jimenez
I am puzzled and very intrigued by this memoir. After reading it, I had trouble sorting out exactly how I felt about what I had read and been “told” by Babitz in her memoir, and yet the more I think…
Eve’s Hollywood
Never having read anything by Eve Babitz, I was excited about this particular book as I used to live in Hollywood myself. So I was prepared, should I say, to be taken back. I used to live on North Visa Street,…
