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Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A. (New York Review Books Classics) Paperback – August 30, 2016

by Eve Babitz (Author), Matthew Specktor (Introduction)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 979 ratings
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No one burned hotter than Eve Babitz. Possessing skin that radiated “its own kind of moral laws,” spectacular teeth, and a figure that was the stuff of legend, she seduced seemingly everyone who was anyone in Los Angeles for a long stretch of the 1960s and ’70s. One man proved elusive, however, and so Babitz did what she did best, she wrote him a book.

Slow Days, Fast Company is a full-fledged and full-bodied evocation of a bygone Southern California that far exceeds its mash-note premise. In ten sun-baked, Santa Ana wind–swept sketches, Babitz re-creates a Los Angeles of movie stars distraught over their success, socialites on three-day drug binges holed up in the Chateau Marmont, soap-opera actors worried that tomorrow’s script will kill them off, Italian femmes fatales even more fatal than Babitz.

And she even leaves LA now and then, spending an afternoon at the house of flawless Orange County suburbanites, a day among the grape pickers of the Central Valley, a weekend in Palm Springs where her dreams of romance fizzle and her only solace is Virginia Woolf. In the end it doesn’t matter if Babitz ever gets the guy—she seduces us.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    184 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    NYRB Classics
  4. Publication date
    August 30, 2016
  5. Dimensions
    5 x 0.42 x 8.01 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1681370085
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1681370088
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"One of the truly original writers of 20th-century Los Angeles." —Kevin Dettmar, The Atlantic

“Los Angeles-born glamour girl, bohemian, artist, muse, sensualist, wit and pioneering foodie Eve Babitz...reads like Nora Ephron by way of Joan Didion, albeit with more lust and drugs and tequila...Reading Babitz is like being out on the warm open road at sundown, with what she called, in another book, '4/60 air conditioning' — that is, going 60 miles per hour with all four windows down. You can feel the wind in your hair.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“Her writing took multiple forms. . . . But in the center was always Babitz and her sensibility—fun and hot and smart, a Henry James–loving party girl.”  —Naomi Fry, New Republic

“Babitz takes to the page lightly, slipping sharp observations into roving, conversational essays and perfecting a kind of glamorous shrug.” —Kaitlin Phillips, Bookforum

"[Babitz] achieved that American ideal: art that stays loose, maintains its cool, is purely enjoyable enough to be mistaken for simple entertainment. It’s a tradition that includes Duke Ellington, Fred Astaire, Preston Sturges, Ed Ruscha, and, it goes without saying, Marilyn Monroe.” —Lili Anolik, Vanity Fair

“What we now call a ‘fictive memoir’ comes in the form of ten extended anecdotes about Los Angeles, delivered with all the gossipy sprezzatura of the most desirable dinner guest. Food, drink, drugs, sex, sunsets and a surfeit of move stars soak these tales with colour, while the most colourful component of all is our narrator herself.” —Hermione Hoby, TLS

“Babitz' collection of essays, Slow Days, Fast Company, the best non-fiction written about the Joys of Sensuous LA, I have always thought right up there with Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem.”—Lee Grove, Boston Globe

“Imagine the incisive wit of Virginia Woolf mingling with the listlessness of Françoise Sagan—this is the work of Eve Babitz, an ingenue and poet. Her lyrical sensuality is both sexy and cerebral…this book sizzles with hedonistic abandon, sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll…it is the clarity of her language and her painterly style that cement her place in the pantheon of American literature.” —Sarah Nasar, bookseller at Atlantis Books (Santorini), British Airways High Life Magazine
 
“Eve Babitz was Los Angeles' greatest bard. Promiscuous but discerning, the bombshell with a brain bonded with Joan Didion and bedded Jim Morrison… Babitz is finally getting the literary comeback she deserves.” —Lili Loofbourow, The Week

"[The] radiantly specific Slow Days, Fast Company...might serve to explicate LA better than any other book I’ve ever read... Like her generational and aesthetic peer Renata Adler, Babitz has a nervous, windblown eye, a knack for perceptual and associative leaps. Like her West Coast fellow Joan Didion, she has a stringent–in fact, rather stark–intelligence...Babitz’s perceptions, her aphoristic formulations, are legion and strike me as both startling and profound.”—Matthew Specktor, Tin House blog

“Babitz’s sentences—fluffy, golden, and spunky—which appear flippant…but like Marilyn Monroe infusing the ditz with closeted intellectualism, Babitz has a genius for revealing the depths of ostensibly shallow waters.” —Monica McClure,The Culture Trip

“Her dishy, evocative style has never been characterized as Joan Didion-deep but it's inarguably more fun and inviting, providing equally sharp insights on the mood and meaning of Southern California.”—Laura Pearson, Chicago Tribune
 
"Undeniably the work of a native, in love with her place. This quality of the intrinsic and the indigenous is precisely what has been mising from almost all the fiction about Hollywood...the accuracy and feeling with which she delineates LA is a fresh quality in California writing."—Larry McMurtry, Washington Post
 
“In these ten cajoling tales, Los Angeles is the patient, the heroine, hero, victim, and aggressor: the tales a marvel of free-form madness. Like Renata Adler, Eve Babitz has fact, never telling too much”—Vogue

"Babitz loves LA. These ten pieces are a love story about her city...slick and clever as ever, and keenly perceptive as ever."—Michele M. Leber, Library Journal

About the Author

Eve Babitz is the author of several books of fiction, including Sex and Rage: Advice to Young Ladies Eager for a Good Time, L.A. Woman, and Black Swans: Stories. Her nonfiction works include Fiorucci, the Book and Two by Two: Tango, Two-Step, and the L.A. Night. She has written for publications including Ms. and Esquire and in the late 1960s designed album covers for the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and Linda Ronstadt. Her novel Eve’s Hollywood is published by NYRB Classics.

 Matthew Specktor is the author of the novels American Dream Machine and That Summertime Sound, as well as a nonfiction book of film criticism. He is a founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ NYRB Classics; Main edition (August 30, 2016)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 184 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1681370085
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1681370088
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.42 x 8.01 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 979 ratings

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Eve Babitz

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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
979 global ratings
As if to dream...
5 Stars
As if to dream...
With some books, one read just isn't enough. That's how I've always felt about this one. Every year or so I pull this slim volume off my shelf and read it again--sometimes cover-to-cover, sometimes just chapters that I'm especially in the mood for. Yes, I know it's not PC to love L.A., but having gone to high school in the Valley (before the invention of Valley Girls) I can't help it. L.A. is and always will be a part of me. And Eve Babitz is L.A. I’m so glad I bought this edition when it came out because the other covers are exceedingly boring compared to the amusing and arresting drawing of an Afghan Hound in a turtleneck sweater, sitting in a café. The ten jewel-like memoirs/stories take me to a different place that no longer exists except in my dreams. Babitz is a fabulous writer and a fascinating woman. Read it. I can say no more.
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Top reviews from the United States

J.R.
5.0 out of 5 stars As if to dream...
Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2022
Verified Purchase
With some books, one read just isn't enough. That's how I've always felt about this one. Every year or so I pull this slim volume off my shelf and read it again--sometimes cover-to-cover, sometimes just chapters that I'm especially in the mood for. Yes, I know it's not PC to love L.A., but having gone to high school in the Valley (before the invention of Valley Girls) I can't help it. L.A. is and always will be a part of me. And Eve Babitz is L.A. I’m so glad I bought this edition when it came out because the other covers are exceedingly boring compared to the amusing and arresting drawing of an Afghan Hound in a turtleneck sweater, sitting in a café. The ten jewel-like memoirs/stories take me to a different place that no longer exists except in my dreams. Babitz is a fabulous writer and a fascinating woman. Read it. I can say no more.
Customer image
J.R.
5.0 out of 5 stars As if to dream...
Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2022
With some books, one read just isn't enough. That's how I've always felt about this one. Every year or so I pull this slim volume off my shelf and read it again--sometimes cover-to-cover, sometimes just chapters that I'm especially in the mood for. Yes, I know it's not PC to love L.A., but having gone to high school in the Valley (before the invention of Valley Girls) I can't help it. L.A. is and always will be a part of me. And Eve Babitz is L.A. I’m so glad I bought this edition when it came out because the other covers are exceedingly boring compared to the amusing and arresting drawing of an Afghan Hound in a turtleneck sweater, sitting in a café. The ten jewel-like memoirs/stories take me to a different place that no longer exists except in my dreams. Babitz is a fabulous writer and a fascinating woman. Read it. I can say no more.
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8 people found this helpful
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DaveP
4.0 out of 5 stars Slow Days, Not So Slow Company
Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2016
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I very much enjoyed reading this, but it falls short of the top grade for a couple of reasons: 1) the "company" is not really very fast: the only interesting character is Eve herself, the only wit is hers in observing, the only interesting comments are hers. There aren't any real conversations, nothing to give it that zip of human interaction. 2) whether fast or slow none of the characters other than Eve come alive as real people. 3) at times the incidents described seem rather banal and not much different from the experiences of people who were not rich and famous. I was 20 in 1967, went to Woodstock in '69, to San Fran in '71, had a wild time without much money, until I slowed down a bit at 30 and went back to school. Aside from the luxury, the life she's describing seemed pretty tame to me, especially considering that it covers the same time period of the sixties and seventies that my generation experienced.
With that being said, the book is a fun read because of Eve herself. She does not engage in self-aggrandizement and pokes fun at herself as well as others. Her satire is witty but not vicious, there's no sense that she's settling old scores even if she is. There are some great lines (which I cannot quote because I've already sent the book to a woman friend who I know will love it) which say so much with so few words that you have to be careful not to gloss over something without getting the full implications. And she is not pretentious, she's not trying to be any kind of writer except herself. That's refreshing in this era of pseudo-literary crud. So if you're feeling lazy on a Sunday (or whenever), curl up with this book, and you'll have a great time without having to get out of bed.
12 people found this helpful
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Grace Fortiter
4.0 out of 5 stars Good if you want to dig LA as it was / is for natives
Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2016
Verified Purchase
Flashy, very L.A. in the 70s from a woman who grew up there and went to HS in Hollywood. Funny, sassy, in the end sad because so many women seem to feel their lives are over past 40 and the freshness of high-heeled youth. Funny satire of Emerald Beach Laguna, WASP rich haven from the nonwhite, nonProt, nonPreppy. I enjoyed it, as someone who spent teenage years of the 50s in Pasadena, CA and went on HS weekends to Balboa and Newport Beach, drove over hills and ranches to Laguna -- where Riverside now is! Unrecognizable.
19 people found this helpful
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Darpon
5.0 out of 5 stars I've got a crush on you
Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2023
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This is the best book she ever wrote. Read it first. I used to live in the neighborhood at that time. She captures it wonderfully in an open and oddly innocent way.
2 people found this helpful
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Clint Catalyst
5.0 out of 5 stars 4.5
Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2023
Verified Purchase
What took me so long to discover Eve Babitz? I live for a good memoir and Babitz was a writer who did exactly that: lived. In her novella Slow Days, Fast Company, Babitz stitches her shrewd cultural observations of LA in the ‘60s-‘70s and her romantic entanglements together like the brightly-hued tattoos on a Sunset Strip-devotee’s sleeve.
One person found this helpful
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Vishishta
5.0 out of 5 stars A treasure!
Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2021
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How did I miss this beautiful collection! Although a native Angelino, I’ve just no stumbled across this lovely writing. She captures the dream in perfect language.
One person found this helpful
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K. Baumwald
5.0 out of 5 stars A different voice
Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2019
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Eve has a unique voice and a writing style well worth checking out. This is a quick, engaging read and I found myself wanting to start the next chapter as soon as I finished the last.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

GC
1.0 out of 5 stars Boring
Reviewed in Italy on February 25, 2023
Verified Purchase
Irrelevant stories of irrelevant people.
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Nickolette Stefanova-Kiryazov
5.0 out of 5 stars Hot & Glamorous Without Being Stupid
Reviewed in Germany on April 26, 2021
Verified Purchase
A nice reminder that reading can be pure fun.
My group of friends are re-discovering Babitz and reading and sharing different parts.
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Nikita Poddar
5.0 out of 5 stars Witty, sarcastic and full of vigour
Reviewed in India on March 17, 2019
Verified Purchase
Read Babitz when you're not in a mood to read, when you want to give your dilapidated heart another chance, when you're craving a cocktail of sensible conversations, when you are mobbed by insecurities and when the flashy world seems too flashy.

Babitz observes and delivers in a way that seems like a prerequisite for commentary on the obvious as well as the not so obvious course of actions.
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Nikita Poddar
5.0 out of 5 stars Witty, sarcastic and full of vigour
Reviewed in India on March 17, 2019
Read Babitz when you're not in a mood to read, when you want to give your dilapidated heart another chance, when you're craving a cocktail of sensible conversations, when you are mobbed by insecurities and when the flashy world seems too flashy.

Babitz observes and delivers in a way that seems like a prerequisite for commentary on the obvious as well as the not so obvious course of actions.
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4 people found this helpful
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Nicola Roberts
5.0 out of 5 stars Glamour
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 2, 2019
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Glamorous and beautifully written
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jose luis pissarro
4.0 out of 5 stars the taext and the craft quality of the book, which are very high quality
Reviewed in Spain on January 15, 2019
Verified Purchase
I'm discovering this author, which I aprecciate very much for several reasons; I'm almost in love with her if I go to L.A. one time I'd like to have a drink with her she is a very gifted author - person; I feel very idenidied with her culture and

my age 71 is another factor; she sends me back to the times I was a young man and that is amazing .
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