The Secrets of Joan Didion. The Secret of Eve Babitz, with Lili Anolik

The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.7 • 855 Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2025

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, I talk with author Lili Anolik about her book on two writers whose lives overlapped in ways that were both unlikely and (in retrospect) inevitable. One is Eve Babitz, the exuberant chronicler of 1970s Hollywood. The other is Joan Didion, whose notoriously "cool," exacting style defined a particular vision of Los Angeles and helped make her one of the most influential writers of the last century.

The two writers are often framed as opposites, but in Didion & Babitz, Lili explores how they shared similar burdens of the times–burdens around creativity, ambition, and modern womanhood. If you enjoy literary gossip, this interview is for you. Our conversation includes some surprising and, at times, uncomfortable details about Didion's marriage, her relationship with her daughter, and her lingering feelings from an early romance with Noel Parmentel, a roguish figure who helped her start her career and introduced her to her husband, John Gregory Dunne. If you're among the devoted Didion faithful, you may hear things you didn't expect. If you're new to Eve Babitz, consider this your introduction to one of the great hidden figures of American literary life.

Guest Bio:

Lili Anolik is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a writer at large for Air Mail. Her work has also appeared in Harper's, Esquire, and The Paris Review, among other publications. She is the creator of the podcast Once Upon a Time… at Bennington College. Her latest book is Didion & Babitz, published by Scribner.

Transcript

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0:00.0	That kind of superstardom doesn't happen by accident or without real desire for it and without calculation.
0:05.1	The way Hemingway seemed like one of his characters, the way Fitzgerald seemed like one of his characters,
0:08.9	so that they became figures of glamour and that their personas took on a life of their own.
0:13.9	Joan understood that. And I don't know if it was all, I don't even think it was all calculated.
0:17.2	It was just instinctive she knew how to do it.
0:24.0	Welcome to the unspeak easy podcast. I'm your host, Megan Dahl. Another literary conversation
0:29.7	for you this week. I talk with author Lily Anilic. She is the author of a book about two writers,
0:36.7	one you may be hearing of for the first time,
0:38.9	and one who is among the most famous of the last century, probably.
0:45.0	The first is Eve Babitz.
0:47.5	She exuberantly chronicled and participated in the Hollywood rock and roll scene of the 1970s before drifting into obscurity,
0:56.8	illness, and eventually squalor.
0:59.1	The second is Joan Didion, who is in many ways the inverse of Eve, but whose relationship
1:05.2	with her inspired my guest to investigate both of their lives.
1:09.4	This conversation includes some fascinating insights and surprising details about Joan Didion,
1:15.3	especially regarding her marriage and her relationship with her daughter.
1:19.0	So if you're among the legions of Joan fans, I can promise you'll find it compelling and
1:24.9	maybe sometimes uncomfortable.
1:27.2	If you're just learning about Eve
1:29.2	Babbitt's lucky you. This is a portrait of a unique time in literary history. I'm going to hold
1:35.4	up the book so you can see it if you're watching on video. And it was so much fun to talk about
1:41.6	it with Lily Anilic. So here we are.
	...

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