On Tuesday night, an exclusive crowd of familiar faces and literary enthusiasts gathered at the Chateau Marmont to celebrate the west coast launch of Didion & Babitz, Lili Anolik’s new book about the complicated relationship between writers Joan Didion and Eve Babitz—inspired by Anolik’s 2022 feature on the subject for Vanity Fair.
The hosts of the evening, actor Emma Roberts and her Belletrist book club cofounder Karah Preiss, called the event a full-circle experience, as both are friends of Anolik as well as fans of Babitz.
“This is a pipe dream that came true,” added Roberts. “We’re so excited. Eve Babitz is so LA and so Hollywood, yet anti-Hollywood, and we thought it would be so fun to honor her tonight by reading her previously unreleased letters. As Lili says, they found the letters after she passed away, letters she wrote to get her feelings out and never sent. And I like to think she’d love to see us reading her real thoughts out loud at the Chateau on a November night.”
Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black admitted he’s normally a homebody, but couldn’t miss the event after getting lost in Anolik’s book. “Emma sent me the book a couple of weeks ago…I finally cracked it open this morning and had it finished by three o’clock,” he said.
The event’s readings included roughly 10 of Babitz’s colorfully-worded, unsent letters and journal entries, delivered with enthusiasm and verve—including and especially, several well-placed f-bombs—by Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Nicole Richie, Roberts, director Alexi Wasser, Anolik, Elizabeth Olsen, and Beverly D’Angelo. One choice postscript, in a letter to Babitz’s ex-love, Grover Lewis read by Roberts: “P.S. I am not drunk. It is 8 a.m. on a Tuesday morning and I figure, fuck it—you guys are loathsome bores and deserve to be exposed.”
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