As soon as I started to read the blurb, I knew I had made a mistake. I had been coaxed into purchasing this book by the sheer number of times it had appeared as an Instagram advert. Powerless before the algorithm, I finally gave in and bought it, without too much exploration into what it was actually about. So when I eventually picked it up, opened the cover and started perusing the inside jacket copy, I felt an initial rush of excitement that quickly segued into dread, as I realized the blurb could easily have passed for one of my own diary entries.
The book in question, Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors, tells the story of the young, angelically beautiful British student Cleo who, adrift in a New York that she will shortly be kicked out of thanks to US immigration, succumbs to the charms and eventual marriage proposal of an older, debonair man named Frank, in pursuit of that most elusive thing: the Green Card.
A rash and probably ill-advised marriage undertaken during a whirlwind romance, and its inevitable ending in tears and deportation. We have no interest in reading about the past, or a dystopian future, or even a utopian future; we only want to read about characters exactly like us. How far is it healthy to go in the quest for relatability, of feeling seen? Despite an endless stream of party invites, upscale restaurants and mountains of seemingly free cocaine, Cleo and I both found New York to be an extremely isolating place.
Although I too attended rooftop party after rooftop party, I could never quite shake the feeling that no-one would have really cared if I was there or not. Although, like Cleo, I was fortunate enough to make a couple of close friends, my overwhelming experience of New York socialising was being surrounded by a glittering cast of fascinating characters who you would have one conversation with and then never see again.
It made me feel like less of a loser. Similarly, Cleo feels the absence of a sense of belonging, of a home. She made her bed, she had to go lie in it, etc. And the fear of admitting to that failure is what allowed me to continually overlook things in my own relationship marriage that might otherwise have given me pause.
