Joan Didion, Eve Babitz, and the Cultural Fascination That Won’t Fade

By Debra Murray

Joan Didion has been an everlasting literary figure, a style icon, and despite her several fiction and nonfiction books — an enigma. 

The writer passed in 2021 but has continued to reach generations due to her keen observations on American culture and is an icon for literary “it girls” on TikTok. If you’ve been on literary fiction or nonfiction BookTok, you know Joan Didion, girls throw their copy of Sloughing Towards Bethlehem in their Literary Hub tote bag.

In November, Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik was released. The nonfiction book was written by the same author who wrote Eve’s Hollywood and developed a close relationship with Babitz before her death. Didion & Babitz explores the relationship between two literary figures and at one time, mentor and mentee. 

I bought the book the day of its release because it was one of my most anticipated reads of 2024 and slowly chipped away at reading it. The book says Joan Didion will be “revealed at last,” but I felt that I was understanding more of how Babitz felt about Didion, not vice versa. Throughout the book, it was clear that the author’s close relationship with Babitz and intense loyalty to the author were evident. 

Didion & Babitz felt a tad gossip-y, and measured these two literary icons against each other rather than sharing what makes their writing special. To me, what makes each of them special is Didion’s observations of American culture and evading being noticed as she’s observing and Babitz is able to be an active participant in California culture in the 1960’s and 70’s. Both literary icons have been a consistent inspiration for me since I discovered them. Didion’s The White Album, and Babitz’s Eve’s Hollywood entranced me. They are essentially two sides of the same coin, and sometimes even telling the same story.

I did enjoy learning some about their dynamic, but ultimately, the book was so focused on Eve’s perception of Didion and their silently catty falling out and jealousy of one another. Even in death, they managed to compete. Babitz died on December 17, 2021, and less than a week later, Didion died on December 23, 2021. 

Another part of Didion & Babitz that stuck out to me is the focus on Didion’s marriage and her previous romance with Noel Parmentel Jr. who eventually set her up with John. To me, there was an unnecessary focus and speculation about her marriage that Didion herself didn’t want to share. Alknoni writes about John’s temper and how other authors such as Jackie Collins, author of “Valley of the Dolls”, believed that Didion was scared of her husband.

However, Didion & Babitz is not the last time that we’ll be able to explore Didion’s personal life. Two other books being published this year focus on Didion’s connection to the film industry and a collection based on Didion’s writings found in a filing cabinet inside her New York City apartment after she passed.

In March, Alissia Wilkinson, a film critic, released a book titled We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine, exploring Didion’s connection to the film industry, starting with Didion’s childhood love of John Wayne. Didion and her husband worked as screenwriters while living in California in between their other writings.

Most recently, it was announced that her private diary and therapy notes in Notes to John are set to be published in April. Didion’s writing has returned after three years after her death. The book is described to explore Didion’s relationship with motherhood, marriage, and alcoholism.  

How has Joan Didion's writing and personal life continued to enamore us?

“Everything we revere about Joan Didion is instantly apparent in these pages — the precision, the fierce intelligence, the piercing insights, the withering interrogation of her motives. Yet this is also Joan Didion as we have never seen her before — open, vulnerable, wrestling with raw emotion,” Jordan Pavlin — Knopf executive vice president, publisher, and editor-in-chief — said in a press release. “Notes to John is an extraordinarily intimate record of a painful and courageous journey in the life of one of the greatest writers of our time.”

The other question raised as a result of the news of Notes to John being published is: is it ethical? Since Didion left no instructions on whether or not she intended the writing to be published, it is legal to publish it. She was always intentional in what she chose to bare, like in her 1969 column for Life, when she wrote that she and John were in Hawaii “in lieu of filing for divorce.” Still, who would want their writings containing complications in family relationships and struggles with alcohol and anxiety to be published to the world?

One anonymous friend of Didion’s told The Observer: “I have no doubt that this document will further our collective astonishment at Joan’s work, but I also cannot think of anything more private than notes kept about one’s psychiatry sessions. It’s not my place to say what Joan would have wanted, but as someone who loved her very much, the publication of these pages makes me terrifically sad.”

It is my personal belief that if Didion intended for these pages to be published, she would have provided instructions herself rather than leaving the decision up to others. However, I would be lying to say I won’t be curious once the book is on sale.

 “Joan was nothing if not meticulous and intentional with the details she decided to share – and not share – in The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights. Anything beyond that seems to me a tremendous betrayal of her privacy by the people she trusted the most.”