Happy Hour

Refreshing and wry in equal measure, Happy Hour is an intoxicating novel of youth well spent.

Isa Epley is twenty-one 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)

Marlowe Granados is a writer and filmmaker based in Toronto.

• Marlowe Granados's novel Happy Hour is about naked ambition and being the life of the party
• CBC Books winter 2021 reading list

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."

Read more from her interview with The Next Chapter.

Interviews with Marlowe Granados

The Next Chapter13:31Marlowe Granados recommends three books centered on young women

TNC columnist Marlowe Granados recommends three books about women using wile and wits as they navigate the city.

The Next Chapter17:01Marlowe Granados on Happy Hour

Marlowe Granados on her debut novel Happy Hour, about a young woman and her best friend who want to wring as much fun, glamour and experience from life as they can, during one hot summer in New York.