Sex & Rage
Advice to Young Ladies Eager for a Good Time
Eve Babitz
“The two girls grew up at the edge of the ocean and knew it was paradise, and better than Eden, which was only a garden.”
Available as Paperback, Paperback, eBook, Downloadable audio
2 July 2026
Iconic LA ‘lit girl’ Eve Babitz’s semi-autobiographical novel of sun, excess and success
INTOXICATING ~ EFFERVESCENT ~ HEDONISTIC
Iconic LA ‘lit girl’ Eve Babitz’s semi-autobiographical novel of sun, excess and success.
Jacaranda – wild child of sun and surf – grows up by the hurling glory of the ocean and believes that good things are infinite. Propelled by drink, drugs and men, she travels headlong through the rip current of West Hollywood’s decadent paradise in the pursuit of pleasure. Before long, she is on the edge: the allure of excess threatens her book deal, the patience of her agent and the possibility of a new life.
Sex and Rage charts the highs and lows of a life lived at the limits, of creative pursuit and of dazzlingly beautiful people in 1970s LA.
“As cool, sharp and delicious as a perfectly executed Mint Julep. Babitz writes with wit and clarity - and always, always with a whole lot of heart”
Elizabeth Day
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“A mesmerising account of a young woman trying to decide what to do about her own premonitions”
Jia Tolentino
“Babitz writes like no one else, but if she sounds like anyone, it is Nora Ephron writing songs for Lana del Rey. Sex & Rage is seductive, funny and infuriating – it’s a slacker siren song, a novel about writers and writing and a heavenly holiday to ’70s LA all at once”
Daisy Buchanan
“Pure pleasure - a perpetual-motion machine of no-stakes elation and champagne fizz”
new Yorker
“Babitz’s style is cool, conversational, loose, yet weighted with a seemingly effortless poetry”
guardian
Eve Babitz
Eve Babitz was born and grew up in Hollywood. She began to write in 1972 after designing album covers for such artists as Linda Ronstadt, Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds and Lord Buckley. Her articles and short stories have appeared in Vogue, Rolling Stone, Esquire and The New York Times Book Review.
“Sex and rage and bags of talent”
The Independent on the rediscovery of the brilliant Eve Babitz, author of Sex & Rage:
“She’s a comic, a poet, and a rare writer who is capable of finding the universal in the unique.”
