IN APRIL, an editor at Scribner, publisher of Lili Anolik’s new book Didion & Babitz, tweeted a photo of a box of galleys with the caption, “Literary It Girls™ get ready.” Responses ranged from excitement (“Inject this straight into my veins!!!”) to excitement tempered with self-deprecation (“big day for annoying and insufferable people [me]”) to unmitigated disdain. Disdain at the idea of pairing such different writers as Joan Didion and Eve Babitz on the basis of their shared gender, social scenes, sometime subject matter (Los Angeles, women), and death month (December 2021); disdain at the idea, even in jest, of reducing two complex women to a brand; disdain at the idea, all too real, that a woman who writes needs to commodify herself as a brand in order to be read. An online consensus emerged that both women, especially Didion, would have hated this playful promotional post.
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