I’m late to this, obviously — “Cleopatra and Frankenstein” was one of the ‘it’ books from a couple of years ago — but with a new Coco Mellors novel on the horizon, I took the plunge into her debut and found myself completely absorbed in what I can only describe as a compulsively readable melodrama about the short-lived romance between 24-year-old budding British artist Cleo and 40-something advertising executive Frank.
What starts as a fun and flirtatious fling hurtles into marriage within six months of their meeting in an elevator on New Year’s Eve in New York in 2006, and the jubilation of their budding relationship rapidly turns toxic, spreading like a contagion into the lives of those closest to them. It’s all very soap operatic, but grounded in its unravelling. Mellor switches between various (related) characters, who exist on divergent social spheres, and differ considerably in age and life experiences, and she paints extraordinarily vivid portraits of her cast.
The whole thing is suffused in melancholy, but it’s not the virulent kind that can make a story dreadfully saccharine. Mellors’s prose is economical, and the crispness and cleanness of her descriptions means the book moves at a terrific pace as it progresses between May and December. Ultimately her novel is about how people betray themselves, and others, in an effort to find love, and accomplish their dreams, and achieve some semblance of satisfaction in their own lives; how a person can feel alone and adrift, and misunderstood, even in the arms of their lover.
Written By Sime 