Happy Hour is ultimately about cheeky, frenzied frivolity and the value in living a life that’s derived from pleasure, from saying yes and trusting that living is enough. The novel is told from the perspective, through journal entries, of Isa, who talks like she’s in a Greta Garbo film, and who an old man would enjoy describing as a “spitfire.” Happy Hour isn’t about plot or character growth it’s not about achieving lofty goals, but is more a series of episodes chronicling the adventures and potent social observations of Isa and Gala as they get invited to parties by friends they vaguely know, saying yes to everything from a lecture by a French economic theorist to a Hamptons trip with a British aristocrat. ‘How do you know they’re not just gathering material?’” But making art isn’t the point it’s being at the opening at all: “The critic peered over his glass to take a good look at us.
In one chapter, they visit a gallery show, and nobody can believe they’re not artists. But Isa and Gala aren’t in New York to become anything: They’re there to live and to pay attention. In a city that is all about social and economic capital, it’s a concept nobody can quite wrap their heads around, and they are constantly asked why they don’t have internships, or aren’t making art. In Marlowe Granados’ novel Happy Hour, 21-year-old best friends Isa and Gala move to New York City to do nothing for a summer.
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