The Easy Hour: A Novel of Leisure

by Leslie Stella

Welcome to the “Easy” life!

When overworked, underpaid women’s wear retail slave Lisa Galisa (the rhyming name is only the beginning of her agonies) suddenly becomes the personal assistant to an infamous Chicago socialite, she accidentally, hilariously, becomes the toast of the town. Catapulted into the role of trendsetter, this frustrated working-class girl seizes the opportunity to unleash some South Side mayhem on a gullible society that hungrily embraces the next “new thing.”

Lisa offers them the “Easy” lifestyle, encouraging her new crowd to shake it up and party alongside janitors, fry cooks, and bricklayers. Soon she has the upper crust patronizing dive bars, wearing cheddar-hued polyester, and grooving to the bewitchingly canned melodies of easy listening—the emperor’s new music. And the social set is having it.

But as the Bridgeport-born-and-raised charlatan begins to buy into her own fraud, longing to leave behind the land of retail hell and Polish “saah-sidges” for life among the beau monde, her eccentric family and a mysteriously handsome janitor with a penchant for astronomy dip into their own bag of tricks to keep her on the right side of sanity, if on the wrong side of the tracks.

Join Lisa Galisa and the rest of these charming oddballs at the Easy Hour, where they find the best remedy for a hard existence is a little easy listening.

Genres: Fiction, Chick Lit

265 pages, Paperback

First published April 22, 2003

About the author

LESLIE STELLA is the author of the YA novel, Permanent Record (March 2013, Skyscape), and three previous novels of contemporary adult fiction, Unimaginable Zero Summer, The Easy Hour, and Fat Bald Jeff. She was a founding editor of the Chicago-based politics and satire magazine Lumpen, and her work has been published in The Mississippi Review, The Adirondack Review, Bust, Easy Listener, and anthologized in The Book of Zines: Readings from the Fringe (edited by Playboy’s Chip Rowe), a collection of essays and articles from the obsessive, frequently bizarre world of zines. Leslie is a Pushcart Prize in short fiction nominee.

(I won't rate books by other authors here on Goodreads. I think there are obvious reasons why an author might feel uncomfortable doing that.)

Photo: © John McMullen 2012

Reviews

[10thumbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remembered liking Leslie Stella’s Fat Bald Jeff ~15 years ago so i picked this up at a used bookstore somewhere along the way.

A fine quick read that I started at the beach and finished in a Chicago coffee shop (albeit a northside one). I feel like it could have been about 1/2 as long — as i didn’t feel invested until about the halfway point. I cared less about the build-up and back story as a I did about the main character, Lisa’s, change over time. Maybe it was that she took on some agency then, maybe the story just felt more effortless, like cruising on a bike down a hill after a sloggish uphill climb.

[Joe Collier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Southside born and raised Lisa Galisa sells sportswear at Chicago's Fishman's Department Store, her retail existence barely more ambitious than dreams of earning the coveted brown senior salesperson name tag and portraying Maria Callas as part of a storewide Greek Islands marketing theme. When Lisa helps her friend Fred launch a popular retro-themed club night—the Easy Hour—in a local Bridgeport tavern, her path crosses that of infamous socialite Honey Dietrich and she gets the chance to become her personal assistant. Soon Lisa—when not confiding in gay best friend Tim Gideon—is spending her time planning an Easy Christmas party for Chicago’s elite, and falling in love with Ray Fuchet, schoolteacher/Fishman’s part-time janitor and Aristotle Onassis to her Callas. Has Lisa finally come into her own? Can she bring her Easy style to high society Chicago? Stella’s second novel is a witty, sharp story of one girl’s chance to climb a little higher, albeit with her offbeat family and friends in tow. Readers who enjoy fashion or a lively, clever, light-hearted story with humorous female characters and more than a little irony should take note.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book seems like it was trying to be a fish out of water story similar to The Devil Wears Prada or The Nanny Diaries, however I don't think it is at the same level. It has some funny parts, and was entertaining, but there were some references that seemed either unresolved or unnecessary (why does the main character need to idly smoke pot every time she returns home?). It is a fairly quick read, and full of pop culture references.

[Nirac · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to reading this book. I thought it would be like other chick lit books I've read. Unfortunately, I was extremely disappointed. The main reason for this is that I
never really enjoyed reading it. I kind of had to force myself thought the pages... I didn't like the characters, and neither the hole situation.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

better than fat bald jeff but not as good as unimaginable zero summer (the first book i found from this author). she manages to make her main characters un-sympathetic but then somehow likeable. kind of strange. fun 'easy' read :)

[Carolyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn't really a fan of this book. It is a nice story of the grass is always greener, but then turns out not to be.

[Little · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ultimately fairly forgettable, but a good enough time waster for a long commute or waiting room visit.

[Francesca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just not sharp or clever enough to hold my attention, although it has its moments (and is really well edited! :)

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not even finish the book. Got about 100 pages in, and was so uninterested that I had to put it down. While the Chicago setting was mildly interesting, I found zero entertainment in the narrator.