Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors is a pre-covid New York urban fiction novel populated with flawed, and sometimes unlikeable characters – simply because they are ordinary humans. The characters are at times lacking insight, bad at arguing, codependent and avoidant.

When the darkest part of you meets the darkest part of me, it creates light.

Twenty four year old Cleo is a painter with ambition but not motivation, and her student visa is about to expire. Enter Frank – they meet after a New Year’s Eve party. Frank is a fortyish advertising agency owner. The chemistry is instant and the two marry after a very short courtship – Cleo swears it’s not just the visa, there are others she could have married for that.

Love looks through spectacles that make copper look like gold, poverty like riches, and tears like pearls.

The relationship soon begins to unravel into addiction, loneliness and betrayal, both haunted by past baggage that prevents them from functioning well together. As their relationship turns sour, they start to turn on one another.

I’m so lonely I could make a map of my loneliness….Sometimes I’m so lonely I’m not even on that map.

They are surrounded by friends, who due to their own struggles, are unable to support them. Frank’s half-sister, aspiring actress Zoe, relies on him for handouts to support her, and his best friend Anders is in love with Cleo. Cleo’s best friend Quintin struggles with his sexuality.

He wished he loved her a little more or hated her a little less, something to tip the scale. Instead, he lived in the fraught balance between the two, each increasing the intensity of the other….

Due to their inability to connect effectively with one another, Frank turns to Eleanor and Cleo turns to Anders.

Everybody’s got a hungry heart. The trick is to learn when you’re eating to fill the heart instead of the stomach. Feeding the stomach, she said, is easy. That’s just diet. It’s learning how to feed the heart that’s hard.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein is a meander about the ordinary struggles of life with the self and others, and about falling in and out of love. The novel is primarily character driven with lots of big intense feelings. If you like action, it might not be for you as the plot is loose.