Marlowe Granadoss debut novel is a picaresque for the glamorous and broke.
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She is soon approached by a very sunburned woman.
Sorry to interrupt, the woman interrupts.
I just love your bow, your outfit, and youre beautiful.
She says this almostreverently, then leaves, only to be replaced by another admirer.
Its a little alarming, and he finally returns it with a hysterical laugh.
He wears tattered joggers and a Rolex.
Later, the porter informs us that he lives here.
For a while, they get away with it, charming their way into the citys well-to-do circles.
The protagonists ofHappy Hourfall into a clear literary tradition.
Isa even talks like them; indeed,Happy Houris practically written in a transatlantic accent.
(Granados also co-hosts a movie podcast calledThe Mean Reds.)
The writer jokes that Isas distinctive, Old Hollywood way of speaking is really her own after three drinks.
The inflection is the product of the years she spent in London, studying creative writing at Goldsmiths.
Certain aspects of the novel suggest that Granados had another muse: herself.
Still, Granados is coy about how much is fiction and how much is autobiography.
Love is in some ways like fascination, Isa muses in the book.
The thing about fascination is once you realize there is nothing left to discover, it quickly wears thin.
Granadosgrew up in a suburb of Toronto in a two-bedroom apartment with her young, divorced mother.
Honestly, there was a time where I was like, maybe shes a spy, she says.
The authors party-girl phase, from which many ofHappy Hours events were lifted, began when she was 15.
And she has always worked: appearing in commercials and music videos, modeling, and photographing everything.
Sometimes men just fly you out, she says with a shrug.
Granados describes her own life as veryPygmalion.
Granados started writingHappy Hourat 22 and finished at 25, calling the period after its completion her lost years.
Vegetables are out of budget; they subsist on bodega hot dogs and pizza.
And while both are bona fide party girls, Isa, who is brown, is always careful.
None of this is in your face, because none of it is the point.
If you know, you know, says Granados.
These girls are experiencing misogyny, racism.
I wanted to have it in there without spelling it out.
These tensions come to a head when Isa visits the Hamptons at the behest of a British aristocrat.
Back at the Carlyle, things are becoming sordid.
She appeals to the Balthazar host for some sticky tack.
I have none, he says, looking baffled.
I suggest a pencil eraser and the host offers Granados a Ticonderoga.
She hates not wearing earrings.
Ive always felt a little bit not ostracized, but not taken seriously.
And I always thought that was so funny, because it was based on what?
That I was young?
That I was pretty?
Or that I was … whatever.
Its like, Whos going to have the last laugh now?
Balthazar is empty now.
Things have a dreamy haze, the result of Champagne and dry contact lenses.
The restaurant feels a little frozen in time.
I wonder, if Granados could go back in history, where would she go?
Oh, thats easy, she says, tossing her head.
I would go to Studio 54, and I would have to be let in.
And I would be a muse, of course.
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