Books

First edition, first printing, a review copy signed by the author on the front free endpaper, with the publisher's publicity photograph loosely inserted. Babitz has been likened to F. Scott Fitzgerald for her fictionalized portrayal of a dazzling cultural milieu, in her case 1970s Los Angeles and her adventures there as the "It" girl of Hollywood. Babitz (1943-2021) first gained notoriety in 1963 through Julian Wasser's iconic photograph of her playing chess nude against the artist Marcel Duchamp. Sex and Rage, subtitled in the style of an etiquette manual, follows a carefree young woman whose literary and hedonistic pursuits are closely modelled on the author's own. "If anyone partook of '70s L.A., it was Eve. It was Quaaludes, coke, screwing around a ton, it was that post-pill, pre-AIDS moment that she fully, fully embraced" (Kilkenny). As a writer, Babitz was praised by Joan Didion and Joseph Heller but went widely under-appreciated until the release of a 2014 media profile of her life in Vanity Fair. Her works have since been reissued and published in translation for the first time. In response to her sudden emergence as feminist icon to millenials, Babitz quipped, "My whole life, I always got attention from men, and now it's girls who like me" (quoted in Kilkenny). Octavo. Original black cloth-backed blue board sides, spine lettered in gilt, front cover lettered in black, rear cover stamped in blind with publisher's device. With dust jacket. Title page printed in red and black. A fine copy in fine, unclipped jacket. Katie Kilkenny, "How 1970s 'It' Girl Eve Babitz Became Young Hollywood's Latest Obsession", The Hollywood Reporter, 7 Jan. 2019.

A novel that explores the life of a young woman in California as she navigates the turbulent waters of career, love, and self-discovery.