If you’ve ever spent a July afternoon in Los Angeles when the heat makes the pavement shimmer like a mirage, you know the vibe. It’s that heavy, stagnant air that makes you feel like you’re underwater. Most people think Eve Babitz Slow Days Fast Company is just a book about being a "party girl" in the 70s. Honestly? That’s such a lazy take.
It’s actually a love letter. Or maybe a breakup note.
The book is officially titled Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A., and it’s basically ten interconnected stories—or "sketches"—that blur the line between what really happened and what Eve wanted to happen. It was published in 1977, a time when L.A. was hitting a specific kind of peak decadence. Think cocaine, Valium, and the Polo Lounge.
The Truth Behind the "Love Story"
The whole thing kicks off with a weirdly honest apology. Eve tells us straight up: "This is a love story, and I apologize, it was inadvertent." She wrote it for a man. Specifically, a man who didn't love her back. She even uses italics throughout the book to talk directly to him, like little secret notes tucked into the prose.
It’s kind of heartbreaking if you think about it. One of the most famous, beautiful, and connected women in Hollywood—the woman who played chess naked against Marcel Duchamp—was essentially trying to prove she was worth noticing to some guy who probably wasn't even that interesting.
But that’s the magic of Eve. She takes that private rejection and turns it into a map of a city.
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Why You Can’t Put It Down
Her writing isn't like other authors from that era. Take Joan Didion. People always compare them because they were friends and both wrote about California. But Didion is all dread. She’s the person at the party telling you the house is going to slide into the ocean.
Eve? Eve is the person handing you a drink with a gardenia floating in it.
She loves the "slowness." The days that stretch on forever where nothing happens, yet everything feels vital. She writes about taquitos, the Santa Ana winds, and why people in L.A. call their houses "spaces." She captures the way the light hits the mustard-colored hills.
What Actually Happens in the Book?
It isn't a novel with a plot. Don't go looking for a "inciting incident" or a "climax." It’s more like a series of vivid fever dreams.
- Bakersfield: She visits a fan in the flat farmland two hours north of L.A. and treats it like an expedition to a foreign planet. She notices there’s no diet cola and no platform shoes. It’s hilarious and surprisingly political.
- Heroine: No, not a female lead—the drug. She meets Janis Joplin twice, but Joplin is too high to speak. Eve isn't even mad; she’s just sad. She does plenty of drugs herself (cocaine, Quaaludes), but she draws the line at heroin because she sees what it does to people.
- Emerald Bay: She hangs out with her "companion" Shawn, who is gay and from the South. They navigate the "sadly hideous and Nixony" socialites of Orange County.
- Dodger Stadium: A story about baseball that is actually about sex and tension.
The "Tar-Baby" Problem
One of the most famous parts of Eve Babitz Slow Days Fast Company is her explanation of the "tar-baby." It’s her term for those people who drive you crazy by never responding. The more you try to get a reaction out of them, the more you get stuck in the "tar."
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She admitted later that Jim Morrison was one of her great tar-babies. You can feel that frustration in every chapter. She’s trying to be so brilliant, so "fast," so colorful, just to get a glimmer of recognition from someone who is fundamentally unavailable.
Is It Nonfiction or a Lie?
Critics call it "autofiction" or a "fictive memoir." Eve herself said she would "stick people together" to create characters. They weren't always one person.
Basically, it’s the truth according to Eve.
She wasn't trying to be an objective reporter. She was an artist (she designed album covers for Buffalo Springfield and The Byrds). She saw the world in colors and textures. When she describes a "white powder called Coyote’s Brain," you don't care if that was its real name. You just feel the buzz.
The Legacy in 2026
Decades later, the book is more popular than ever. Why? Because we’re all living in a "fast company" world now with social media, but we’re starving for those "slow days."
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Eve captures a version of L.A. that is gone but also feels permanent. The restaurants change—Port's is gone, the Luau is long dead—but the feeling of being a "slave to color" and wanting to be seen remains.
How to Read It Like an Expert
If you’re picking this up for the first time, don't rush. It’s a book for a Saturday where you have no plans.
- Don't look for a hero. Eve is messy. She’s mean sometimes. She’s "voluptuous" and she knows it. She talks about her skin radiating moral laws because it looks so healthy. It’s arrogant and wonderful.
- Ignore the names. You’ll want to Google everyone—Harrison Ford, Steve Martin, Ed Ruscha—but the "Fast Company" is just the background. The "Slow Days" are the point.
- Watch the weather. The book moves through the geography of L.A. like a weather report. Rain, smog, and the desert heat are characters.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Reader
If you want to channel your inner Eve Babitz without the 1970s drug habit, start by looking at your surroundings with more "sensuous" detail.
- Observe the Mundane: Eve could make a grocery list sound like a tragedy. Try to notice one specific, weird detail about your neighborhood today. Is it the way the light hits a specific billboard? The smell of a specific taco truck?
- Accept the Slowness: We spend so much time trying to be "productive." Eve argues that the moments where we’re just "hanging out" and thinking about life are actually the most important parts of being human.
- Be a Native of Your Own Life: Whether you live in L.A. or London, write about it like you own the place. Don't be an observer; be a participant.
Eve Babitz died in 2021, but Slow Days, Fast Company feels like she just stepped out for a drink and left the door open. It’s a messy, brilliant, drug-fueled, sun-drenched masterpiece that reminds us that even if the "love story" doesn't turn out well, the writing of it might just make you immortal.
To truly appreciate the nuances of Babitz's work, compare her "sensuous L.A." to the "dread L.A." of Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem. You'll see two women looking at the exact same sun and seeing two different worlds. One sees the end of the world; the other sees a really good reason to order another drink.