At a sold-out reading at Moth Club to celebrate the launch of Too L.A.: Letters Never Sent (But Some Were), Eve Babitz’s letters were brought back to life, celebrating the stories and wit that have made the writer a cult favourite for a new generation.
Down a narrow turning off Mare Street, Moth Club, the East London venue recently threatened by developers, is alive and well. On a summer evening, beneath its glittering gold ceiling and shimmering backdrop, the venue was filled not for its usual gigs or club nights, but for a sold out evening dedicated to Los Angeles-born artist, muse and writer Eve Babitz.
Outside, there was no mistaking what people were queuing for. Ballet flats, white poplin dresses, sheer tops, mini skirts and hair left deliberately undone all nodded to the free-spirited glamour of 1970s Laurel Canyon and the Sunset Strip, despite the event unfolding in East London.
The occasion was the launch of Too L.A.: Letters Never Sent (But Some Were), a posthumous collection of Babitz’s correspondence and journal entries, edited by her biographer, Lili Anolik. The book, that reads like a diary, gathers candid letters written by Babitz to some of the defining figures of her generation’s American culture, including Joan Didion, Joseph Heller, Annie Leibovitz, Ed Ruscha, Anne Rice and Steve Martin, offering a glimpse into the parties, friendships, romances and glamour that made Babitz such a special chronicler of Los Angeles.
Although Anolik couldn’t be in London for the evening hosted by Deeper Movies, she appeared via a pre-recorded video with instructions that felt unmistakably Babitzian. “Don’t take any drugs Eve wouldn’t take, and don’t have sex with anyone Eve wouldn’t have sex with,” she joked, setting the tone before writers, creatives and musicians took turns reading her letters about fame, relationships and Hollywood, with laughter regularly breaking out at her one-liners and brutally honest observations that decades later, still land.
Anolik believes the letters are where Babitz’s writing feels most at home: “Eve couldn’t treat writing as a profession, as a career. To do so wasn’t just against her principles, to do so was against her character. Writing for her had to be a renegade pursuit, and improvisational. And that’s what letters are, casual, off-the-cuff, intended to amuse or delight or provoke; they aren’t bucking for immortality in the way that literature is. Of course they’re Eve’s metier.”
Part of Babitz’s appeal has always been how much of her personality can be found in her writing. She was both a Hollywood insider and a party girl, and her voice captured California life with wit, freedom and a distinctly female perspective that still feels new today. Although she spent much of her career overlooked by the literary establishment, a revival over the past decade, sparked by Lili Anolik’s writing on Babitz and the reissue of her books by New York Review Books, has introduced her to a new generation of readers. Many have been drawn to her diaristic writing style and the sense of female freedom that runs through her work, as well as her ability to treat pleasure, friendship and seemingly frivolous moments as subjects worthy of attention.
“It’s so exciting to me that Eve, after spending her entire writing life being ignored or disparaged, is now freshly, hotly read,” Anolik says. She sees part of that revival as connected to Didion’s own renewed cultural importance. “Joan Didion is bigger in 2026 than she’s ever been. It sometimes seems as though she’ll stop being important when the sun burns out. You need a counterbalance. If Joan is control, Eve is chaos. If Joan is an observer, Eve is a participant. If Joan is the consummate craftsperson, Eve is the consummate improviser. If Joan is eye-on-the-prize, Eve is a walk on the wild side. It’s a yin/yang, eros/thanatos thing, I believe. Readers, the world, needs Eve!”
The event was organised by Steve Hanley, founder of club Deeper Into Movies, whose reading series has become an extension of its cult film programming. For this particular event, the collaboration with Anolik felt like an obvious fit. “Lili and I have been pals for a few years,” Steve explains. “We’ve got a mutual appreciation for each other’s creative output. We like all the same books and movies, we just clicked. We curated the readings together over email, going back and forth with ideas and suggestions, and we agreed on basically everything.”
As people drifted back onto Mare Street, the excitement that had filled Moth Club lingered outside. Babitz spent much of her career dismissed as frivolous, yet the sold out event suggested that readers are finally catching up with what she was doing all along. Her writing invites you into the party, celebrating the messy contradictions of life. Decades after they were written, her letters still feel as though they’ve arrived exactly when they were meant to.
Words – Moira González
