Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados
Happy Hour (2020) is Toronto-based writer and filmmaker Marlowe Granados’ debut novel, an unassuming and intoxicating book about two young, beautiful girls partying their lives away for one sweltering summer in New York City. Despite the emphasis on glamour, Happy Hour’s depth and nuance is evident in its protagonists’ view of the world. Isa and Gala have been partying together ever since they were underage; now 21 years old, the girls move to New York together with an agenda to do “absolutely nothing.” But it is in this nothingness that Granados’ writing really has a chance to shine.
Happy Hour is made up of the meandering diary entries of Isa, who (like Granados herself), is of mixed Filipina and Salvadoran heritage and possesses the aura and charm of someone you definitely want at your party. She is joined by her freshly blonde best friend Gala for a summer of dazzling nights out: from bars to galleries to house parties to late-night bodegas on repeat against the glistening silhouette of New York.
The book begins with the girls moving into someone else’s room for the summer, with plans to sell their clothes at a market stall to cover the rent and their living expenses. Their differences shine through the pages from the start – where Isa is reserved and quietly incisive, Gala is unapologetic and reckless. As the days and weeks wear on, the girls find themselves at home in New York’s nightlife – soon they know everyone and everyone knows of them, with rich men often all too happy to buy them drinks or let them stay the night simply in exchange for their presence. Granados makes some wonderfully incisive observations about what it means to be young and beautiful:
“I can’t tell you how much pressure is put on girls like me and Gala to give other people a good time.”
Later on, Isa admits that “charm is currency,” and while the girls are aware of and concerned with both its use and depletion, it is this currency that allows them to experience life for themselves. For the remainder of the book, Isa and Gala continue to test boundaries – in finances, in friendship and in their lifestyle. The only real source of conflict arises from a combination of these, when money runs tight enough to cause a strain on their relationship – however, they find their way back to each other easily and pick up where they left off seemingly without an issue.
Despite the small ruptures in their friendship, and other inconsequential conflicts that crop up, you would be hard-pressed to find any traces of a coming-of-age novel in Happy Hour – that’s because despite their young age, Isa and Gala are already fully formed individuals with their views and opinions of the world cemented in their experiences. However, their escapades never come across as privileged. Both girls’ backgrounds are kept deliberately vague – their illegal status as undocumented migrants is repeatedly referred to throughout the book – coating every day and decision in a permeating sense of insecurity. Ultimately though, the girls always find a way of getting what they want without anything bad ever happening to them, a conscious choice on Granados’ part. Written around the beginning of the #MeToo movement, she wanted to ensure that her book wasn’t about women suffering – and they don’t. Which is a somewhat unexpected, refreshing change of perspective.
This creates a space for Granados to really shine as a writer – the meandering narration, the quick successions of deeply insightful revelations, and a protagonist who is flawed and bitingly self-aware all contribute to a book that’s hard to believe is a debut.
One of the strongest points of Happy Hour is how it embodies youth – on the cusp of something like real responsibility, yet still unabashedly wanting the world for themselves. Even Isa herself admits this:
“It takes practice to have restraint, and we are not yet at an age to try it out.”
A couple of pages into Happy Hour, you are tempted to criticise the narration and Isa in particular for perhaps appearing too confident – the narration can seem unrealistic or over-dramatised, with snippets of dialogue so polished they start to reflect the light, while Isa can come across as precocious and overly self-assured, seeking glamorous adventures and making sometimes irritating observations along the way. Like Breakfast at Tiffany’s Holly Golightly, Isa gallivants precariously around the city, approaching each person and situation with her mind already made up.
But the longer you read on and the more you give yourself over to an atmosphere of young summer flings and expensive food and drinks, you realise that Happy Hour isn’t over-selling anything. Happy Hour depicts 21-year-olds exactly as they are: slightly arrogant in their naivety, confident in their youthfulness. Granados perfects the 21-year-old tone of voice in Isa – if I opened the diary I wrote at 21, I’m almost certain I would find similarly poised snippets. And while you may feel above that age and that way of thinking, Happy Hour delivers with poise and verve a summer in which nothing and everything happens – just like every summer you’ve ever had.
Ultimately, Happy Hour is driven not so much by social commentary, but rather character commentary; through the eyes of Isa we get to see the sort of people that inhabit New York’s nightlife, and all the cracks in their well-oiled machines. A rotating cast of insignificant celebrities, artists, bachelors and self-professed intellectuals provide a varied landscape for Isa and Gala to comment on, ridicule, take advantage of and ultimately learn from. Even if your preferred summer trip isn’t to New York, Happy Hour is worth a ride!
Fruzsina Gál is an aspiring writer, born in Hungary but living in Australia. She has been a reader all her life, and her first short story, 'The Turul' was published in Griffith University's 2018 anthology, Talent Implied. Her writing is often focussed on identity and the effects of immigration on the self. You can find her online at www.fruzsinagal.com or @thenovelconversation.