Review of "Happy Hour": Neo-Flappers roaming the modern day New York
Review of Happy Hour:
Neo-Flappers roaming the modern day New York
by Zeynep Bashak
The story of the neo-flapper Isa — with her reckless behavior and relentless hedonism even against her deficient financial circumstances — is raw, vibrant, and biting. In her debut novel, Marlowe Granados captures the coming-of-age story of a “flâneuse” — an urban idler woman dedicated only to the discovery of a city — through her summer in New York and fittingly the book is released in the first week of September by Verso Books. What could a twenty-one-year-old woman be searching for in New York? There can be many possible answers, but none apply to Isa; she is not looking for answers. Isa spends the night indulging not in mere answers but in drinks. What she mostly indulges in is her signature french 75 being an invention of New York it binds Isa — like a ribbon — to her flâneuse manners. With an occasional touch of comedy of manners she gives this whole account of a summer well spent a hilarious tone. The novel for me is more than a summer well spent in New York but a rough guide into relentless hedonism and harmless flânerie.
The accounts of Isa’s summer of personal jollification takes place in the nights of New York, where she immerses herself in the urban life with her complementary best friend Gala. Marlowe Granados uses the city of New York as a sewing needle; through the eye of the neo-flapper of the twenty-first century, she pulls a thread of interesting and wide selection of characters and quietly sews them in and out of the story, embroidering a mirrored painting of the hollow and deceitful society of New York.
Although she arrives in New York only with a sufficient quantity of clothes and no prospects of succeeding in something a capitalist society would regard as a quantifiable ambition, Isa is no wide-eyed naive appetizer for the New Yorkers. “Remember, girls, if you’re not on the table, you’re on the menu!” She gets a welcome dressed in a congenial warning from her friend Lilou who’s a mild social swindler and “the other woman” for many of the meticulously selected wedders of New York. Isa only sits on the table, careful always to not to fall into the menu of these people. Throughout the novel Isa stands still against the greedy cacophony of New York, which is a position in life that many of us aspire to, not to become appetizers upon the tables of greed.
Marlowe Granados uses the city of New York as a sewing needle; through the eye of the neo-flapper of the 21st century, she pulls a thread of interesting and wide selection of characters and quietly sews them in and out of the story, embroidering a mirrored painting of the hollow and deceitful society of New York.
Isa admits her appetite. When she arrives in New York, her belly is full, but her hunger persists. Isa is a self-proclaimed hedonist; her only ambition is to enjoy life. She has a hunger for life in all of its magnificence, and she embraces it with grace and poise. She is determined to go through her summer (and her life) experiencing joie de vivre.
We can of course consider Isa a modern flâneuse. She sneaks into events and clubs colonizing the night of New York. She goes on belonging to trespasses through her life, where she draws her superiority from but where else a vagabond can draw her strength from? We see a woman of immigration remains an exotic fantasy for others, so why shouldn’t the exotic bird sip from the zeal of life in her sojourns? She muses right after her arrival in New York, “People think coming to New York is an answer, and that’s where they go wrong.” Though New York exists as a haven for many, Isa has no fantasies about the city. She takes it as what it is—a place where she can discover the festivities and debaucheries the artificial bright night may offer.
Isa and her best friend Gala are characters of immoral ideas, because that is the only way they can achieve their idea of hedonism. They exist in New York illegally; they are migrating birds so they use their only solid resource: charm. Doing gigs where they could rely on their feminine resource by day and haunting the clubs by night, they’re the most genuine people you can bump into in New York. When all the nervous and plain people of New York pass them by they all put these two woman in categories. They are exotic or chic. Both Isa and Gala have no value for the capitalist society. Immigrating women with no aspiration of marriage or job never do aside from existing to be put into idealization. But Isa and Gala never care about these apart from using the categories they’ve been put into in order to gain profit or to sneak their way into the glamour and glitz of industrialized society. Shouldn’t we all double their steps and just lounge over clouds of delight rather than fulfilling images of a society where greediness is appreciated as if it was a virtue?
We see a woman of immigration remains an exotic fantasy for others, so why shouldn’t the exotic bird sip from the zeal of life in her sojourns?
Like many women, Isa is observed by men. She’s confronted by a quote at the back of the postcard of Comtesse d'Haussonville given to her by her best friend: “I was destined to beguile, to attract, to seduce, and, in the final reckoning, to cause suffering in all those who sought their happiness in me.” Knowing her more than anyone, Gala hands Isa this postcard of a woman turning away from her reflection. Isa is a different image of elusiveness to many men, but she ignores them all, staying faithful only to her own amusement.
Happy Hour in the end is what many women need. It’s an instruction on how to stay true to gazing without falling into the image others try to push you into; it’s an affirmation of hedonism and joys of constant discoveries against a society of hustling.
HAPPY HOUR
By Marlowe Granados
288 pp. Verso Books. $19.95.
Order here.
Zeynep Bashak is an inter-disciplinary writer from Smyrna, Turkey. She writes both as a means of living and as an exercise against the anxieties of life. In her free time, she plays the lyre, practices ballet, and enjoys what life brings.