Angel Language

The Chris Kraus Reading

I travelled all the way from rural Dorset to Newcastle to attend a reading by Chris Kraus, the author of the cult novel I Love Dick, at Newcastle University, organised by English writer Shaun Wilson.

I was invited to the event by CK herself after reaching out to her and starting a correspondence that resulted in her reading and blurbing my novella Dissolve.

Newcastle is a ten-hour train journey from my hometown, but I wanted to meet CK as well as thank her in person, so I booked a hotel for one night and embarked on the two longest train journeys of my life, back to back.

Before the talk, I was lucky enough to introduce myself to CK, who was impossibly accommodating. We went and sat at a table on our own and had a long discussion about her books, Semiotext(e), Nate Lippens, Henry Miller and Dennis Cooper.

It is hard to accurately convey how encouraging CK was about my book and my writing in general. I was quite taken aback by her enthusiasm, having only shared my writing with a handful of close (and mostly now ex-) friends. She said things and gave me advice that I will never forget. She is also the reason I have thrown myself into writing as recklessly as I have.

Before the reading, Shaun Wilson introduced CK in his down-to-earth, everyman way. Though he himself is far from an everyman, he completed a work placement at CK’s historically important independent press Semiotext(e), and is the author of the experimental autofiction novel Malc’s Boy, published by Conduit Books, a meditation on new and old masculinity.

CK’s talk was fantastic: she spoke so eloquently and openly about her own work and the nature of autofiction itself, though she told the audience she much prefers and relates more to the term New Narrative, the theoretical movement associated with Robert Glück and closely linked with Semiotext(e) itself. It reminded me of how bands rejected the label ‘emo’ in the early 2000s, preferring the term post-hardcore.

CK spoke about and read from her new book The Four Spent the Day Together, which I enjoyed, particularly the beginning, where she writes about her adolescence. She really dove into the case the latter half of the book is based on deeply, corresponding with some of the people involved in it while they were in prison. Her passion for true crime literature really came across, referencing Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood multiple times.

At the end there were audience questions; there were a lot of younger students in the crowd, so I decided to raise my hand and ask a question. Due to my debilitating stage fright, my hands and voice were shaking as I held the microphone in the giant auditorium full of people.

I asked CK if, when writing the novel, she was at all concerned with the book’s tonal shift, which starts as heart-warming coming-of-age adolescence and then ends with a crystal meth murder. I asked this because part of me just wanted more of CK’s adolescence and childhood, and genuinely wondered if, when structuring the book, she had considered whether the parts were suited to each other.

I got my answer in blunt terms: “no.” CK told me and the crowd that the book was conceived as an interpretation of the crystal meth murder, and that she had built it around her own adolescence, combining a fictionalised version of a real crime with a fictionalised version of her youth. The structure was deliberate, and any tonal shifts were intentional.

I think I was possibly transferring insecurities I would have had about writing such a novel onto a historically significant writer with a distinct, singular voice.

After the talk, Shaun invited me to join him, CK, and their friends at a local bar for drinks. CK and I were also hungry, and he said that we should have dinner at the bar.

As well as sitting and speaking to CK, hearing her talk, and asking her a question, I was now going to have dinner with her.

We sat in a quiet corner. CK ordered some kind of pie; I ordered a burger. I found this funny: the American ordering a typically English food and the Englishman ordering a typically American one.

We spoke further about her life in LA and my time singing in bands, as well as art and music. I have met and hobnobbed with a few people successful in their fields, but none of them has been as down-to-earth and generous in spirit as CK. If you ever get the chance to see her talk, I cannot recommend it enough.

After dinner I said my goodbyes and thanked CK and Shaun, then headed back to my hotel.

When I got back to the hotel I was exhausted and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. It was another ten-hour train journey the next day.

The day after I got back home from Newcastle, there was a mass stabbing on the same train I had been on for twenty hours.

While the train was moving and the passengers had no means of escape, the assailant moved from carriage to carriage, attacking people with a machete. Ten people were taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.

One survivor of the attack said he heard the assailant say, “the devil is not going to win,” between attacks.

When the train stopped and armed police apprehended the assailant, a witness reported that he screamed “kill me” three times before being tasered and restrained.

The following day, the police held a press conference to announce that it was not a terrorist attack.