Two by Two: Tango, Two-Step, and the L.A. Night

The book is about the dance scene in Los Angeles in the 90s. Babitz took dance lessons, went dancing, interviewed dancers and instructors, and made friends among them. There is commentary interspersed with dialog. The book reads easily and in the Epilogue, written some time after the main text because she was seriously burned and spent time recovering, contains a brief update on the dance scene (which rapidly changes, with clubs coming and going, fads coming and going, dancers coming and going, including some dying). The chapters are based on specific dances: fox-trot, two-step, tango, cajun and fais-dodo, ballroom, salsa, and both east coast and west coast swing. At first blush the book seems a break from her previous works. They were fiction (although pretty autobiographical) and based primarily in the 60s, with some tales from her parents generation back into the 30s, when Holllywood was Hollywood. There was a grace and an ambiance which she presents. And there were certain people who were graced and who helped make that ambiance. In many ways that period passed in the 70s, when she wrote to fiction pieces. There is a nostalgia about them. TWO BY TWO also harkens back to that time, to Fred and Ginger, to when there still were social graces, where flirting was an art form. The dance scene has elements of this and TWO BY TWO traces this out, but in a New Journalism fashion. And the book is a paen to dancing, because it is fun and good for you. I recommend this book

I have purchased this book and thoroughly enjoyed it. I and my fiend's have also been able to put it to good use. However, I saw this woman on Book TV C-SPAN2 recently and she is a babbling fool. I say keep writing and less talking.