Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados
CBC Books | Posted: December 23, 2020 12:42 PM | Last Updated: January 11
An intoxicating novel about youth well-spent
Isa Epley is 21 years old and wise enough to understand that the purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure. In her diary she chronicles her New York City adventure during the sweltering summer of 2013. By day, Isa and her best friend, Gala, sell clothes in a market stall, pinching pennies for their Bed-Stuy sublet and bodega lunches.
By night, they weave from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side among a rotating cast of celebrities, artists, and bad-mannered grifters. Money runs ever tighter and the strain tests their friendship as they try to convert their social capital into something more lasting. Through it all, Isa's bold, beguiling voice captures the precise thrill of cultivating a life of glamour and intrigue as she juggles paying her dues with skipping out on the bill.
Happy Hour announces a dazzling new talent in Marlowe Granados, whose exquisite wit recalls Anita Loos's 1925 classic, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, updated to evoke a recent, golden period of hope and transformation. A cri de cœur for party girls and anyone who has ever felt entitled to an adventure of their own, Happy Hour is an effervescent tonic for the ails of contemporary life. (From Flying Books)
Happy Hour was on the longlist for Canada Reads 2024.
- Marlowe Granados's novel Happy Hour is about naked ambition and being the life of the party
- CBC Books winter 2021 reading list
Marlowe Granados is a writer and filmmaker based in Toronto.
Why Marlowe Granados wrote Happy Hour
"What's interesting to me is how women create their own lives and narratives. What I also wanted to show about women's friendship is their journey — and the way that they are little adventurers. That's more important than having these long-term flirtations or romances.
What's interesting to me is how women create their own lives and narratives.
"But it is also an important exercise to show that these girls do desire men in a certain way.
"They're always drawn to them and they can map out how their attraction works. And they like to look at them, which is, I think, quite refreshing and nice."