[4]: 39–40 In 1963, her first brush with notoriety came through Julian Wasser's iconic photograph of a nude, 20-year-old Babitz playing chess with the artist Marcel Duchamp on the occasion of his landmark retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum.

[3] Babitz began her independent career as an artist, working in the music industry for Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic Records, making album covers.

"[9] Despite her literary output, which drew frequent comparisons to Joan Didion and was critically acclaimed,[10][11][12][13][14] much of the press about Babitz emphasized her various romantic associations with famous men.

"[15] Reviewing this biography for The Nation, journalist Marie Solis wrote, "Babitz didn’t live a life free from patriarchy, but modern-day readers might surmise that she found a way to outsmart it.

[18][19][20] Babitz enjoyed a renaissance from 2010 due in part to the reissuing of much of her work by publishers including New York Review Books, Simon & Schuster and Counterpoint Press.

[4] In The Paris Review, Molly Lambert wrote, "Babitz is at home anywhere, and everywhere she goes she finds the most interesting person, the weirdest place, the funniest throwaway detail.

"[13] In a 2009 review of Eve's Hollywood, Deborah Shapiro called Babitz's voice "self-assured yet sympathetic, cheeky and voluptuous, but registering just the right amount of irony", adding, "reading West (and Fante and Chandler and Cain and the like) made me want to go to Los Angeles.

[25][10] In 2017, Hulu announced it would be developing a comedy series based on Babitz's memoirs, a project led by Liz Tigelaar, Amy Pascal, and Elizabeth Cantillon.