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Eve Babitz didn't just write about Los Angeles. She inhaled it, filtered it through a martini glass, and exhaled it as prose that felt like silk and sandpaper. When people pick up Sex and Rage by Eve Babitz, they often expect a standard coming-of-age story or a gritty "lost in the city" trope. What they get instead is Jacaranda Leven—a protagonist who is basically Eve, but maybe a version of Eve who forgot to put on her armor before heading out into the sun.
It’s a weird book. It’s a brilliant book. It’s the kind of novel that makes you want to move to a beach shack in Malibu while simultaneously warning you that doing so will probably break your heart.
The Jacaranda Problem and the L.A. Mythos
Jacaranda grows up in the slipstream of 1960s and 70s Southern California. She’s beautiful, she surfs, and she possesses that specific brand of aimlessness that only the truly privileged or the truly gifted can afford. Most people talk about Sex and Rage by Eve Babitz as a sun-drenched romp, but honestly? It’s much darker than the pink cover art suggests.
The "Rage" in the title isn't a loud, screaming anger. It’s a quiet, vibrating dissatisfaction with the fact that being a "muse" isn't a sustainable career path. Babitz understood something very specific about being a woman in a room full of powerful men: you are often treated as a beautiful piece of furniture that occasionally says something witty. Jacaranda feels this. She drinks to numb the realization that her life is mostly composed of shimmering surfaces and very little substance.
Babitz writes: "She’d never thought of herself as a girl who’d have to worry about anything, because she was so pretty." That’s the trap. The book tracks her journey from a surf-obsessed girl in Malibu to a displaced socialite in New York City, trying to find a reason to exist that isn't tied to someone else’s gaze.
New York vs. Los Angeles: The Great Divorce
The middle of the book shifts gears when Jacaranda moves to New York. This is where the prose gets jagged. Babitz, a lifelong L.A. loyalist, treats New York like a cold, gray alien planet. If L.A. is about the illusion of freedom, New York is about the reality of ambition.
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Jacaranda finds herself in a world of literary agents and high-stakes cocktail parties where her "California-ness" is suddenly a liability. She’s a fish out of water, or more accurately, a surfer in a snowstorm. This section of Sex and Rage by Eve Babitz serves as a brutal critique of the East Coast intellectual establishment. They don't know what to do with her. They want her to be a "writer," but they don't want her to be herself.
She drinks too much. She spends too much. She realizes that the "rage" she’s been carrying isn't about her surroundings—it's about the void inside.
The Real-Life Echoes of Eve
You can’t talk about this book without talking about Eve herself. She was the woman who played chess naked against Marcel Duchamp. She was the woman who dated Jim Morrison and Harrison Ford. She was the "It Girl" who actually had the brains to document the party while everyone else was blacking out.
- The Duchamp Incident: That iconic photograph of Eve at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1963 basically defined her public persona before she even published a word.
- The Writing Style: It’s associative. She jumps from a thought about a dress to a deep philosophical realization about loneliness in three sentences.
- The Sobriety: Like Jacaranda, Eve eventually had to face the music regarding her lifestyle. The book mirrors her own struggles with substance abuse and the eventual realization that the party has to end.
Why the "Rage" is More Relevant Now Than Ever
We live in an era of curated aesthetics. Instagram and TikTok have turned "L.A. Girl Summer" into a brand. But Sex and Rage by Eve Babitz dismantles that brand from the inside out. It’s a warning about what happens when your entire identity is built on being "the girl in the room."
The rage comes from the realization that you have a brain and a soul, but everyone else is just looking at your tan. It’s about the frustration of being talented but also being a "distraction." Jacaranda eventually starts writing, finding a way to transmute her aimless energy into something tangible. That’s the real victory of the novel. It’s not about finding a man or getting a tan; it’s about finding a craft.
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Getting Through the Slump
The book isn't perfect. It meanders. Sometimes Jacaranda is so passive it makes you want to shake her. But that’s the point. Babitz isn't interested in a heroic journey. She’s interested in the slow, agonizing process of becoming a person.
If you’re reading Sex and Rage by Eve Babitz for the first time, pay attention to the way she describes the light. Nobody writes about the California sun like Eve. She describes it as something that can both heal you and bleach your bones. It’s a metaphor for the lifestyle she both loved and loathed.
How to Approach the Work of Eve Babitz
If you’ve finished Sex and Rage and you’re wondering where to go next, don't just grab the first thing you see. Her bibliography is a map of her life.
- Eve's Hollywood: This is her masterpiece. It’s a collection of essays/vignettes that feel more like a fever dream than a memoir. It’s the essential companion to Sex and Rage.
- Slow Days, Fast Company: More focused on the landscape of L.A. and the weirdness of the desert. It’s atmospheric and moody.
- Black Swans: This is later Eve. The prose is tighter, the observations are sharper, and the hangover has set in.
A Note on the 2010s Renaissance
For decades, Eve Babitz was out of print. She was a footnote in the lives of famous men. Then, around 2014, the "Eve-aluation" happened. New York Review Books (NYRB) began reissuing her work, and suddenly, a new generation of women found themselves in Jacaranda.
Why? Because the struggle to be taken seriously while also wanting to look good and have fun is a universal female conflict. Babitz didn't think you had to be boring to be an artist. She proved you could be the life of the party and the smartest person in the room simultaneously.
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Final Takeaways for the Modern Reader
Reading Sex and Rage by Eve Babitz in 2026 feels like looking at a vintage postcard that’s been set on fire. It’s beautiful, but it hurts. It reminds us that "lifestyle" is a hollow pursuit if it isn't backed by some kind of creative output or internal grounding.
If you’re feeling stuck, or if you’re feeling like your life is just a series of events happening to you rather than because of you, Jacaranda’s journey is a roadmap. It’s not a map to a destination, but a map on how to start walking.
Actionable Insights for Navigating the Babitz Universe:
- Read for the prose, not the plot. If you try to follow Sex and Rage like a thriller, you’ll be disappointed. Read it like a long letter from a very smart, very drunk friend.
- Look for the "Rage" in the details. It’s in the way she describes the boredom of beauty. Pay attention to the moments when Jacaranda is alone; that’s where the real story is.
- Don't romanticize the drinking. Babitz didn't. By the end of her life, she was very clear about the toll that the "party" took on her and her friends. Enjoy the glamour, but recognize the cost.
- Use it as a creative prompt. Many writers use Babitz’s "associative" style to break through writer's block. Try writing a page where you jump from a sensory detail (like the smell of jasmine) to a deep-seated fear without using a transition. It’s harder than it looks.
The legacy of Eve Babitz isn't just that she was a "Cool Girl." It’s that she was a writer who refused to be anything else, even when the world tried to make her a muse. That’s the real "Sex and Rage" of it all.
To fully appreciate the depth of her work, compare her L.A. to Joan Didion's L.A. While Didion saw the dread and the cracks in the sidewalk, Babitz saw the purple sunsets and the possibilities. You need both to understand the city, but you need Babitz to understand why anyone would want to stay there in the first place.
Next Steps for Readers
To dive deeper into the world of 1970s Los Angeles literature, track down a copy of Eve's Hollywood and read the chapter "The Groupies." It provides the real-world context for many of the characters and social dynamics explored in Sex and Rage. Additionally, look for the 2019 biography Hollywood's Eve by Lili Anolik to separate the facts of Babitz's life from the fiction of Jacaranda's.