Word: babitz
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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SLOW DAYS, FAST COMPANY by EVE BABITZ 178 pages. Knopf...
Imagine trying to be a regional writer in Los Angeles, the world's most celebrated suburb of nowhere. Eve Babitz -Hollywood born and raised-tries and immediately runs into a problem. "In Los Angeles," she writes, "it's hard to tell if you're dealing with the real true illusion or the false one." An author who distinguishes between true and false illusions must be carefully watched. Babitz calls the ten pieces in her book "tales," but they clearly belong to the mode of parafictions: a mix of autobiography, journalism and the techniques of the short story...
Still, as they say in Southern California, one must go with the flow. In Slow Days, Fast Company that flow is generated by Babitz's fresh, distinctive sense of place: "Outside it's turned pink and the jacaranda tree is magenta, and next door the fourteen-year-old Mexican girl has finished her paper route and swung her long California-bred legs off her bike and now throws a Frisbee at her brother's head, expertly...