Sunday Books & Culture - Historical Fiction
Penny Parrish reviews Caroline Lea’s “Love, Sex, and Frankenstein, “ a behind the scenes origin story of the horror classic
LOVE, SEX, AND FRANKENSTEIN
by Caroline Lea
Published by Pegasus Books (October 7, 2025)
Hardcover $27.95
Audiobook $14.99
Reviewed by Penny A Parrish
It seems to be the season of Frankenstein. Guillermo del Toro’s movie about the monster is streaming now. Our very own FXBG Advance humorist/book-reviewer Drew Gallagher waxed poetic about Christopher Moore’s “Anima Rising” recently. And I am jumping into the pool with this book which focuses on the young woman who wrote the story, and how it came about.
It’s 1816, and 18-year old Mary Godwin and her step-sister Claire Clairmont are hiding from creditors who are after her lover, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary has their young son with her, having been banished from her father’s house because of the affair. Shelley persuades the young women to join him – and Lord Byron – at Lake Geneva. It’s winter, a volcano has spewed ash which darkens the skies, and Shelley is conveniently leaving behind his wife and two children.
When the weather worsens, trapping them in an ancient villa by the lake, Byron suggests they entertain each other by writing a ghost story. Mary ended up writing Frankenstein. But her path to that story takes her from a girl seduced by Shelley to a woman who fights for her child and her self-respect. She is, after all, the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, who died 11 days after giving birth.
Mary, raised by her father and step-mother, seduced by Shelley as a girl, already losing one child and desperate to save her son, is ravaged by guilt infused with self-preservation. Despite the orgies and drunken, drug-infested days and nights at the villa, she finally realizes who she is and what she needs to do to save herself. Frankenstein, the thing she has given life to, is actually herself.
Lea’s writing is moody and atmospheric. You can see the dark skies, the body of a man who washes ashore, the shadows in hallways, the wine in the glasses. You can watch Mary as she tries to escape not only the villa, but her attraction to Byron, her dependance on Shelley, her fickle step-sister.
Based on actual circumstances, this author gives Mary’s story the validity she needed to find herself. “Her story feels astonishing and new and unlike anything she has seen before… the most miraculous creature she has ever seen.” He may scare us, but he defined her.
Penny A Parrish is a local writer and photographer. View here photos.
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