Joan and Eve and Me

A book reflection, the unraveling of my giants, and the mending

I’ve been reading Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik for the better part of the year. As the title suggests, it is about Joan Didion and Eve Babitz. Both of these women have shaped me as a writer, made me think it’s possible to be a writer. In the past few years, they have become a sort of caricature, trendy and so popular that you would have to try to avoid them. They have become a question: “Are you more of a Joan or an Eve?”, which made me want to distance myself from both. But then this book came out, and everyone was talking about how Lili Anolik did Joan dirty in the book… So naturally, I had to read it.

In 2016, I read The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. I became engrossed with the memoir, cried throughout it, thinking often of Hayden and me. I felt I was similar to Joan, and that Joan and John were similar to us. They worked together and shared a life together, and we did too. Joan wrote everything in a detached way. Somehow it allowed me to become more attached to her work. After I got done reading the book I gave it to a friend, thinking she would love it as much as I did. She finished it and said Joan was cold. She said that she felt strange while reading her. I shrugged her off and just thought she didn’t get it. Joan’s voice is cold on purpose because she’s a great journalist, I argued with myself. I wanted to write like Joan.

A few months later, I read Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz. I loved her instantly, as much as I loved Joan, but for very different reasons. I felt seen by Eve; both of us dropping out of college, both of us not hung up on grammar. She took liberties with grammar, didn’t subscribe to the norms. Was more vibes than rules.

As far as the question goes, are you more of an Eve or a Joan? I wanted to be more like Joan, because I felt like I was too much like Eve already. So I started to read as much Joan as I could. I put her on an unreachable pedestal. I built an idea of her in my head, and there she lived, untouchable. I thought she and John were perfect. Admittedly, I didn’t know much about her other than what she wrote, and that documentary on Netflix. But it's what we all do, isn't it? Put our heroes in unpopable bubbles?

As I read Didion & Babitz, it became apparent that in reality, Joan and John’s relationship was nowhere near perfect. Lili illuminating their relationship was not slander; it only deepened their characters for me. Joan was secretive. She liked control, especially over what people thought of her. There was a time in my life when I thought little about what others perceived about me. A time when I was mostly drunk or on some pill, where all of my business was laid out on the street like graffiti to read. I thought that was power. To air out all my dirty laundry. But somewhere along the way, I learned about controlling the narrative. By omitting words, staying quiet, and revealing only what I wanted reflected back. Joan was much more meticulous. She had a vision for her life from an early age, knowing exactly what she wanted and who she wanted to be, and would stop at nothing to get it. She wanted to be a famous writer; she wanted to be the next Ernest Hemingway. She worked tirelessly to become the famous Joan, but I wonder if she ever got where she really wanted to go.

And Eve? It was almost like Eve was too afraid to dream of being a great writer, a cautionary tale. She refused to be vulnerable enough to edit her work, or to even look at her work after writing it… A feeling I know all too well. “I hate people who tell me what to do to improve my stuff. They get nowhere with me.” Eve said about one of her rejected pieces. But the only way to dream, to want something, is to be able to stare at it. To study your own voice, your own work, and where you stand. She didn’t want to measure where she was. Maybe she didn’t want to admit that she wasn’t where she wanted to be.

Old film photo of LA I took

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Of course, I suppose this is all speculation, mixed with projection. After I finished reading Didion & Babitz, I marked it on Goodreads (5 Stars, of course), only to find out there were so many 1-star reviews from what I imagined an angry pitchforked mob coming for Lili. I wanted to respond to all of them and tell them they clearly got the book wrong. Lili didn’t pit these two women against each other; they were in the same circle, came about together, worked with each other. And the microaggressions were there, in their comments, in their hangouts, in their work, and the like. Which is not to say they were enemies or against each other, but is only to say, how normal it was for them to be this way. Nor is this a take-down of Joan or Eve, but a reckoning of the two. It’s not “objectifying Eve” or “putting men’s opinions above others” but simply laying down the facts. Eve objectified Eve, though she called it empowerment. And on the men’s opinion thing, this was also just a fact of their lives. All of writing is speculation, isn’t it? One could argue that all of writing is gossip, and I thought as women we all collectively agreed that gossip wasn’t a bad thing.

“It’s so hard to get certain things together and especially you and VW [Virginia Woolf] because you’re mad at her about her diaries. It’s entirely about you that you can’t stand her diaries. It goes with Sacremento. Maybe it’s better that you stay with Sacramento and hate diaries and ignore the fact that every morning when you eye the breakfast table uneasily waiting to get away, back to your typewriter, maybe it’s better that you examine your life in every way except the main one which Sacramento would brush aside but which V. Woolf kept blabbing on about. Maybe it’s about you and Sacremento that you feel its undignified, not cricket [sic] and bad form to let Art be one of the variables. Art, my God, Joan, I’m embarrassed to mention it in front of you, you know, but you mentioned burning babies in locked cars so I can mention Art.”
-An unsent letter Eve wrote to Joan.

They were about 10 years apart. I think Eve looked up to Joan, but also found fault with a lot of the ways she lived her life. They were so different. Joan loved the masculine, the strong and the hard and direct lines. She thought diaries were weak because they flittered with thought. Something about her upbringing in Sacramento made her feel the masculine was more important, or maybe it was because she viewed ambition as a male desire or maybe due to her influences. If I can speculate maybe it had something to do with her mother, and being a Daddy’s girl. (respectfully)

Was Eve jealous of Joan? That Joan got to do everything she wanted to do in an “effortless” way? Even though we know it wasn't effortless for Joan at all. Line by line is how she worked, and then she made John edit her work; line by line. She would sometimes spend hours on getting one sentence perfect. And Eve didn’t want to work line by line, she wanted to get all of it down on paper and be done with it, and it be a best seller. The best way I can put it is that Joan was looking at Joan, while Eve was looking at Joan.

Joan Didion (I have this photo taped on my fridge)

When I look back at my underlines and highlighted pages from the book they are mostly about Joan, about the unraveling of who I thought she was, (alcoholism, martial problems, rumors of John being gay, etc) Some quotes by her that stick out are:

“Don’t think poor.”

And after the death of John and the publication of The Year of Magical Thinking, she asked her publisher, “Will it be a bestseller?”

Everything points to her ambition, to her drive to succeed at whatever cost. But as I write this essay, I keep leaning towards Eve, keep wanting to explain Eve. Joan was the reason Eve got her first piece published, Joan and John were helping Eve edit one of her novels (that is until she fired them.) Eve wrote about Joan in her books, cloaked her in a veil but if you pay attention you can always spot Joan. Eve dedicated one of her books to the Dunnes. But it seems Joan had completely forgotten about Eve, always onto the next thing, seeking higher ground for her success.

Eve Babitz

I resonate so much with Eve. I have spent too much time looking outwardly at others and being jealous of their success and “ease”. Eve and I have a lot of parallels, just in different contexts. She took photos for bands and made collages, and I reflect on when I took photos of models and bands. I just wanted to do anything creative, to express myself, which I felt was true for Eve, too. I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't have the guts to be a writer back then. Sometimes I think I still don’t have the guts. And let’s face it, the only road to doing something good is with guts.

There’s a quote in the book that perfectly captures how Eve defined her life. It’s a line I think most sensitive creatives can understand. She was making collages at this time during her life while she was dating Earl McGrath. Things were not working out, so Earl started to become mean. He knew where Eve was most vulnerable. “He looked at something I was doing– a painting, you know? He said, ‘Is that the blue you’re using?’ That was it. I stopped painting.” It’s a question that haunted her forever. The questionable doubt by others, when it’s a thing of self expression by oneself, can send ripples. Ripples that might be hard to ever stop.

I don’t know if Joan was a sensitive creative, I get the feeling she swallowed down any emotions of hurt to push forward with the work. It’s pouring rain, but the only way to get out of it is through it, so you trudge along while getting soaked and take it. That was Joan. Or you float away, give up the push, and see where the current takes you, even if it’s downhill. That was Eve.

So I’ve read this book twice, back to back. My two Icons, the two people I wanted to be like in writing the most. The unraveling of these two unraveled something in me, too. Getting to see their flaws does not make me like them any less, but they no longer seem like such giants. I feel seen by their imperfections, insecurities. They were just like we all are. An easy thing to forget when you only see someone’s success.