Eve Babitz—the author of the cult classics Eve’s Hollywood and Slow Days, Fast Company—has died at age seventy-eight. As Kaitlin Phillips wrote in Bookforum: “Babitz’s strength in analyzing LA is that she never quite saw herself as one of the beautiful people. . . . She wasn’t born starry, and when you’ve had to make yourself that way, you understand how much art is involved: You don’t underestimate glamour or charm. It didn’t always come easy to Babitz, but she knew better than to make it look hard, so she learned to write the way she spoke. She thought the inverse—talking like a writer—could be seen as a threat.”
At the New York Times, Lauren Christensen celebrates the life and work of author Randall Kenan, whose books include A Visitation of Spirits (1989) and If I Had Two Wings (2020). “While all around him Kenan watched America honor the white lineage from which he got his name but not his blood, on the page the author held his own history, the Black Kenans’ history, front and center,” Christensen writes. “And now, as America is reconsidering some of the names it has engraved across its institutions and infrastructure, clearing space for other legacies long suppressed, Kenan’s work, too little known during his lifetime, feels particularly resonant.”
Sloane Crosley’s first full-length nonfiction book, Grief Is for People, will be released in June by FSG’s MCD imprint. According to the publisher, Grief “will tell the interwoven story of a burglary, the death of a close friend, and the onset of COVID in NYC.”
Publishers Weekly has named Ellen Adler as its 2021 Person of the Year for her role as publisher at the New Press. “The New Press has been ahead of the publishing curve in a number of important ways, including in finding and publishing future award-winning authors early in their careers and in committing to building a diverse staff and publishing a wide range of voices,” writes Jim Milliot. “The nonprofit is also completing another strong sales year after having a record-breaking 2020.”
LGBTQ reads has released its list of the most-anticipated LGBTQ+ books coming out between January and June 2022.