Black Swans: Stories

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was sent from his native Holland to Australia to look for survivors of a ship thought to have been wrecked on the continent’s west coast. Older and somewhat wiser than when she first met readers between the pages of Eve's Hollywood in 1974, Babitz here probes the causes and consequences of why the '60s and '70s were so thoroughly debauched . This is a collection of nine short stories that focus on the 1980’s, 1990’s, and of course, Los Angeles.

A fine copy in a very good dust jacket with a bit of creasing along the top edge, mild spine fading, and some tanning to the verso (back side). Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Nobody saw -- or sees -- the world as Babitz does, its glitz alongside what had to be scraped off to make it shine. Babitz was living proof that rock-and-roll decadence also could be elegant and that muses could be the sharpest tacks in the room.For example, a woman racked with remorse for an affair she had years ago, finds an earring in her husband’s sock drawer. She renders dead-perfect scenarios of contemporary angst, generously imbued with wit and her characters’ hard-won wisdom.

Babitz’s contradictory views on male-female dynamics — namely her enthusiastic support for sexual liberation, opposed by this frustrating concept of a female intellectual binary that only serves to appease insecure men — is somewhat understandable in the context of the inherited gender roles that were still looming large when she was growing up in the 1950s and early ’60s. I love that it’s almost the opposite of SEX AND RAGE as it’s a more mellow and sober Eve, but still captures her amazing effervescent, humorous, and intensely personal style.

Babitzs talent for the brilliant line, honed to a point, never interferes with her feel for languid pleasures. Babitz's writing is also like the jacaranda tree in glorious bloom—bewitching an entire city, but all too brief. If you are struggling for inspiration try developing a story combining a character from one of your story ideas with a predicament or setting from another. Morrison’s lyric “never saw a woman so alone” now feels prophetic, for Babitz — despite her abundant love affairs — seems, ostensibly, alone. Police brutality, tense race relations, and disenchantment with the false veneer of progress are contemporary concerns, though Babitz’s light, palliating tone is not .