Joan Didion, Eve Babitz, and the Biographer Who Missed the Point

In a 1939 essay, the critic Philip Rahv argued that there have been two main types in American literature: the solemn and semi-clerical, which he associates with Henry James, and the exuberant, open-air lowlife embodied in Walt Whitman. Between them, James and Whitman represent the distinction between “life conceived as a discipline” and “life conceived as an opportunity.” Knowingly or not, Lili Anolik’s dual biography, Didion & Babitz, endeavors to revive Rahv’s opposition, this time for the ladies.