Cleopatra and Frankenstein

By: Coco Mellors

Narrated by: Kit Griffiths

Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

For fans of Modern Lovers and Conversations with Friends, an addictive, humorous and poignant debut novel about the shock waves caused by one couple's impulsive marriage.

New York is slipping from Cleo’s grasp. Sure, she’s at a different party every other night, but she barely knows anyone. 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. He is everything she needs right now.

Cleo and Frank run head-first into a romance that neither of them can quite keep up with. It reshapes their lives and the lives of those around them, whether that’s Cleo's best friend struggling to embrace his gender identity in the wake of her marriage or Frank's financially dependent sister arranging sugar-daddy dates after being cut off. Ultimately, this chance meeting between two strangers outside of a New Year’s Eve party changes everything, for better or worse.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein is an astounding and painfully relatable debut novel about the spontaneous decisions that shape our entire lives and those imperfect relationships born of unexpectedly perfect evenings.

©2022 Coco Mellors (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"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, author of How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right)

"Cleopatra and Frankenstein, the luminous debut novel from Coco Mellors, is a book about many things: It's a great, swooning love story; a shattering depiction of how addiction and mental illness warp our lives; and a perceptive, witty portrait of globalized New York. But most of all, Mellors has written a devastatingly human book, at turns sharp and tender, that marks her as the rare writer whose sentences are as beautiful as they are wise. An unforgettable read." (Sam Lansky, author of The Gilded Razor and Broken People)

"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." (Adam Eli, author of The Queer Conscience)

Captivating

I loved the story and the narration. I actually want to track down something else from the author and the reader.
It’s about a group of flawed, interesting, dynamic people. Beautiful

An Absolute Masterpiece!

There really aren’t no words to adequately describe how I feel about this story, about the characters— oh the characters!
Plus, the narrator of this audiobook is a new favorite, one of the best I’ve heard.

Basic and vulgar

Annoying characters, poor description of a depression and the women are only pretty and broke/flawed/depressed and the men are all smart and successful.