Every page of Slow Days, Fast Company is quotable. Maybe every paragraph. Eve Babitz is a name that was familiar to me when I picked it up but I couldn’t have told you why. Now I’m hooked. I mean, c’mon:

The way to make it rain is to wash your car, as everyone knows (you can make it drizzle if you do only your windshields, but rain requires a whole car), and the way to get invited to a fancy French restaurant is to have rustled yourself up a nice, cozy omelette so that just as everyone has decided to go out for dinner and calls you, you’re sitting there in your pajamas, thinking how virtuous you are for being home.

Slow Days, Fast Company is a kind of autofiction, a collection of essays or stories that overlap loosely, but none of that matters. It’s an absolute blast to read. I think Babitz could make a grocery list that you wouldn’t be able to look away from. I read this book in an afternoon: it took me to late 60’s Los Angeles, and even if there isn’t a real story or important moment in here, it’s the definition of a vibe.

Babitz was a force of nature. Everyone knows a version of her: She’s funnier and smarter than everyone around her; outrageously crude and blunt when she wants to be. She remembers every detail about everyone and is able to turn on the charm for anyone, anytime. Everyone wants to be her or be with her. She’s magnetic, unpredictable and impossible to ignore. And it comes through in the writing:

You know, when you come to think about it, it’s a wonder women have anything to do with men at all, and no surprise that men have devised all kinds of schemes to bind women to them, like not giving them any money. If you had your choice of sleeping with a beautiful soft creature or a large hard one, which would you pick? I mean, if they both had the same amount of money?

It’s been a couple of days since I finished the book, and although I remember almost nothing about the plot points (such as they are), or the characters that populate Babitz’ world, I know I would read a thousand pages of her writing.

Here’s a little bit more:

I had a collection of lovers to keep me warm and my friendships with women, who always fascinated me by their wit, bravery, and resourcefulness, and who never told you the same story twice. Now, women I didn’t mind. I mean, you can go places with a woman and come back just fine (or as my agent, Erica, plowed right in and said: “You know that when you have dinner with a girlfriend, you’re going to come home a whole human being”). I had a third collection of associates who were men but not lovers. “Just friends,” they re called. An American distinction if ever there was one. Only we would say “just” about a friend.

So much of this. If you like great writing, pick up the book. I can’t wait to track down her others.

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