Cleopatra and Frankenstein

by Coco Mellors

4th Estate

New York is slipping from twenty-four year old Cleo’s grasp. Her student visa is running out and she doesn’t even have money for cigarettes. But then she meets Frank. Twenty years older, Frank’s life is full of all the success and excess that Cleo’s lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint, and the opportunity to apply for a green card. She offers him a life imbued with beauty and art―and, hopefully, a reason to cut back on his drinking.

As Cleo and Frank dive head-first into a romance that neither of them can quite keep up with, they learn the hard way how spontaneous decisions can shape our entire lives and how imperfect relationships can be born of unexpectedly perfect evenings.

Beautiful people, love, abandonment, parental neglect, addiction, New York City and one of life’s big questions: how is it that one person can bring out the best in you and another the absolute worst?

‘A character driven epic thoroughly engrossing and entirely magnificent. It is thrilling to read a book that articles with nuance and compassion the way gender impacts every part of our lives. Sometimes you can just tell that a debut novel has been percolating and perfecting inside an author’s mind until it is ready to leap into-and ultimately change-the world’ – The Queer Conscience

“Mellors’ remarkably assured and sensitive debut … strongly evoke[s] Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life… At its core, it’s a novel about how love and lovers are easily misinterpreted and how romantic troubles affect friends and family. A canny and engrossing rewiring of the big-city romance.”―Kirkus Reviews

‘Coco Mellors sprightly, sophisticated novel opens like a quirky indie film… a stellar debut – smart, shrewd and deliciously melancholy’  – Daily Express

‘A tender, devastating and funny exploration of love and friendship and the yearning for self-evisceration. Coco Mellors is an elegant and exciting new voice’ – Pandora Sykes