My lovely boyfriend went on a short work trip to New York this week, and he very kindly brought me back some books that he knew I particularly wanted the US editions of (rather than the UK editions). They also all happen to be American authors. I am very excited to read all three of them and wouldn’t be surprised if they end up in my October wrap-up.
L.A. Woman by Eve Babitz
After reading and loving Slow Days, Fast Company and Black Swans, I’ve got the Eve Babitz bug. My boyfriend got me her short novel, L.A. Woman, which follows two women, Sophie and Lola, as they navigate LA society. I’m yet to read any Babitz, fiction or non-fiction, which isn’t about LA – but her writing is so good I’m starting to believe that maybe LA is the centre of the universe.
L.A. Woman is quintessential Babitz, the story of Sophie, a twenty-something blonde Jim Morrison groupie gliding through a golden existence in L.A., and Lola, a German immigrant who settles in Hollywood in the twenties to drive Pierce-Arrows recklessly down Sunset Boulevard and who knows that Maybelline mascara cakes and Rudolph Valentino are the essence of life.
Sophie and Lola, like the many other women who move in and out of this electric saga, know that while L.A. is constantly changing, it is essentially eternal. Through their eyes we see the mixture of high and low culture, the promises of youth, and the fulfillment of nostalgia, as Babitz shares what it is to be a woman in what she convinces us is the capital of civilization.
Self Help by Lorrie Moore
Having read Terrific Mother last month, I am incredibly excited to read more Lorrie Moore. Self-Help is her first collection of short stories, published in 1985. I love the cover of the US edition – I think there’s something particularly chic about it. Her writing style is gorgeous – she knows when to be blunt and when to write beautiful languid sentences.
In these tales of loss and pleasure, lovers and family, a woman learns to conduct an affair, a child of divorce dances with her mother, and a woman with a terminal illness contemplates her exit. Filled with the sharp humor, emotional acuity, and joyful language Moore has become famous for, these nine glittering tales marked the introduction of an extravagantly gifted writer.
On Women by Susan Sontag
I am extremely late to the party and have never read any Susan Sontag. She feels like the natural next step given I’ve read Babitz and Didion, but maybe that’s just my British mind lumping them all in together. Perhaps I should have started with Against Interpretation and Other Essays, but I’ve picked up On Women so many times and nearly bought it. Once again, I really like the design of the US edition – the cover feels very manifesto-esque.
A pithy and brilliant introduction to Susan Sontag’s writing on women, gathering early essays on aging, equality, beauty, sexuality, and fascism.
On Women presents seven essays and exchanges, spanning a range of the challenges and humiliations women face as they age; the relationship between women’s liberation and class struggle; beauty, which Sontag calls ‘that over-rich brew of so many familiar opposites’; feminism; fascism; and film. Taken together, these pieces―relentlessly curious, historically precise, politically robust, and allergic to easy categorization. Sontag’s inimitable mind at work.
Just a small haul but shoutout to my boyfriend for being amazing ❤
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