Coco Mellors: 'As an alcoholic, I don't think I'll ever not be able to write about addiction'

Last year, Coco Mellors was everywhere. You may not yet have known her by her distinctive flaxen waist-length hair, but you will most certainly have seen the debut novel Cleopatra and Frankenstein emblazoned with her name. After being dubbed ‘the hottest book of the year’ by multiple publications when it was released in 2022, its popularity exploded a year later in the UK, leading the evocative, oil painted portrait of her lead character Cleo on the cover to become an inescapable sight on tubes, planes and sun loungers. Now comes the release of her highly anticipated follow up, Blue Sisters — which is equally un-put-downable.

Mellors and I meet over Zoom while she is on the UK leg of the promotional tour for the book. She is sitting in the study of her sister’s home in North East London, in front of a Sex Pistols poster (Never Mind the B***ocks) and beside a Peloton. It’s an apt juxtaposition for a British-born New Yorker — she moved to the East Coast aged 15 with her family from London and lives there currently with her husband and baby, following a brief flirt with life in LA during lockdown.

Now 34, she works full-time as an author, was five years in the making. She started writing it while studying for a prestigious MFA in Fiction at New York University, working as a fashion copywriter by day and struggling with alcoholism and partying hard by night.