Black Swans: Stories

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don’t quite understand why this is labelled ‘fiction’ and why it also says that on the back cover, because to me it’s clearly memoir essays about her life, but maybe that’s just for legal reasons as she’s talking about real people.

When Babitz’s stories engage with politics, they’re focused on demonstrating how her characters would engage, and the good and bad that comes with it. If you are at a loss for a seed idea, use a plot generator site (there are a variety of them on the web) for the same reason. Every now and then you come across a story that makes you evaluate your own life and I think that's what makes for excellent art.

The black swan was a metaphor for all that could not exist, until of course, due to an intrepid sailor, the impossible became possible. If anything her abilities only sharpened, her ways of linking certain self-obsessions with the wider world growing exponentially. Reading Eve Babitz is like eating cake for breakfast, like having a gossip over brunch with your best friend.

For Nancy, however, the “worst part was on TV, seeing the man running down the street with this ugly lamp. She has had a fascinating life so far, living in LA through some interesting times and her life story would no doubt be one deemed too extravagent to be real. Much of the art of storytelling involves making connections between details that don’t seem to have any link. Often, the mark of a successful story is how, when looking back over the series of actions and choices the character has undergone, the outcome feels inevitable.and her wisecracking, ain't-it-the-truth-honey voice is just about perfect in illuminating the fact. And if you still think you’d be fine with these issues because Babitz is dead so she can no longer profit off being evil (which I believe is OK, I also read a lot of dead white men who would tie for record-breaking gold if racism and misogyny were Olympic sports) don’t say I didn’t warn you: these stories are choppy, pointless, and artless. She compares her petty self-absorption to Proust’s Duchesse de Guermantes, who brushes aside Swann’s revelation that he’s dying of tuberculosis with “something like, ‘If only I could find the right shoes, I’d be able to go to this party I’m already late for.

After all, the world Babitz depicts in her books of women roaming its streets and weighing their impulses very much remains the same, even if the landscape of the city itself has changed . I hadn’t put this book down until I reached the end of ‘Free Tibet’ and needed some time to sit with it. Black Swans further celebrates the phenomenon of Eve Babitz, cementing her reputation as the voice of a generation. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. With a keen eye and a rambunctious voice, Babitz tells the story of a generation’s version of sex, drugs, rock and roll, and the recovery from it all.

It is like driving a collectible convertible with the top down and nary a care about breathing in the smog — though the smog is very real and quite pertinent. Very descriptive sex scenes were dragged for many pages and her interactions with different characters in the books seemed to have little meanings. The blinding twilight of a bygone era in Los Angeles is Babitz's lived experience, distilled here into stories with sweet bite, like sour fruit only just past the point of ripe.

In the late 1960s, she designed album covers for Linda Ronstadt, The Byrds, and Buffalo Springfield. When Babitz's stories engage with politics, they're focused on demonstrating how her characters would engage, and the good and bad that comes with it. Black Swans is a collection of nine stories that look back on the 1980s—a decade of dreams, drink, and stoned youth turning Republican. It restricts their polemical efficacy and narrows their scope but takes away the awkward tinge that other fiction so dedicated to making a point can have.

The 90s post-Chateau-Marmont-Balazs-renov LA my parents boogied in, told in that awfully (and I say this with a hint of affection) romanticized and glossed over manner true to Eve’s breezy cool girl reputation.