Cleopatra and Frankenstein
Hello everyone, how is February going? I grew up thinking this was the worst month of the year, but I’ve been looking forward to the time I get to post this review. Goes to show you with a good book, 28 days should go by in a flash.
As you might remember from way back in December of 2021, I listed a few of my favorite books, including a few that I was looking forward to. Well, now is finally the time. Cleopatra and Frankenstein, one of my bona fide favorite reads from last year, is now available to all of you. Run, don’t walk! (Bear in mind though, there’s a CW for self-harm, suicide, and addiction).
The novel, a debut by Coco Mellors, is a witty and touching portrait of a young and dysfunctional marriage between Cleo, a struggling painter, and Frank, an ad executive. Beginning with their cosmic meeting on New Year’s Eve and continuing through two years of their relationship, Coco Mellors explores how depression, addiction, maturity, and time can rot or ripen the love we find in life.
As you already know, I’m a sucker for any type of love story, so when this came across my desk, I was pretty psyched but found so much more than a literary love story within the covers. Mellors has a beautiful way of building a world through her characters. While we are focused on Cleo and Frank, who meet on New Year’s Eve and are married 6 months later so that Cleo can remain in the country, we also meet a host of their friends, who each have incredibly deep characterizations and lives.
As depression, addiction, and time take a fatal toll on Cleo and Frank’s marriage, I was drawn to the way each character expressed their feelings of listlessness, to the complexity and depth of love and sadness that can exist inside a relationship, and of course, each character’s search for happiness. Everyone we meet in Cleopatra and Frankenstein is a little fucked up, and each is searching for their own way to cope with what life has thrown at them through love, lust, drugs, and art.
There isn’t much to criticize. Stylistically, Mellors’ writing was a bit abrupt: she begins the story and switches from the third to the first perspectives without any fanfare, which might throw some readers off of her otherwise delicate and well-written novel. The novel’s prose is delicious with random detail and dry humor that had me honestly cackling and reading passages out loud to whoever happened to be in the room.
This novel tastes like cake and cigarettes and made me think a lot about how love doesn’t really ever die, and how you can have the right love for the wrong person. At their city hall wedding, Cleo wears a thrifted nightgown, and Frank wears a three-piece white tux. When they are asked to say their vows, Frank tells Cleo, “When the darkest part of you meets the darkest part of me, it creates light.” Their marriage from that day forward is filled with a lot of darkness, and a lot of light. Mellors’ novel honors the way that love can have both.
I actually got to meet Ms. Mellors at her book launch this past week, and really enjoyed getting to see her send her debut out in the world, and getting to champion a debut from the publishing side of things.
Please pick this up and have a laugh and a cry, tell me what you think, and then take a listen to the playlist down below, that I made inspired by the light and dark of love.
