10 h. ago The Four Spent the Day Together by Chris Kraus review – a cult writer tries something new

The I Love Dick author combines autofiction with memoir and true crimeThe Four Spent the Day Together is full of people seeking fresh starts, attempting to give up drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus uses the phrase a lot, making it wilfully jaded in its repetitions. “He could make a fresh start.” “They decided to make a fresh start.” And all along, here she is, making her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as the old ones.Kraus is an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, comprised of letters to an unreceptive lover, turning confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She carried on writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy the letter form brought to the voic...

Politics

7 d. ago How Tom Aspinall, the UFC’s nice guy, became the baddest man on the planet

Alex Pattle spent the day with the UFC heavyweight champion, his father and coach Andy, and others close to the Wigan fighter – who tell the story of a generational athlete

Politics

9 d. ago I spent day inside New Jungle migrant camp & saw thousands of UK

AMID the sprawling squalour of the New Jungle camp in northern France, Somalian Mali Ali insists that Britain’s one-in, one-out deterrent is falling on deaf ears. “Everyone will still try to come,” says the 22-year-old ­Manchester United fan, with a sweep of his hand towards a dozens-strong queue of migrants waiting for food handouts. Hung...

Events

1 week ago Literary fiction of the highest order: BOG QUEEN by Anna North, HEAP EARTH UPON IT by Chloe Michelle Howarth, THE FOUR SPENT THE DAY TOGETHER by Chris Kraus

Anthony Cummins reviews this week's literary fiction

Politics

2 w. ago ‘My heart is broken’: Palestinians begin searching the Gaza rubble for their dead

Using manual tools and their bare hands, people start the immense task of trying to find their loved ones’ remainsGhali Khadr spent two days pleading with his parents to flee with him to southern Gaza, warning them that it was too dangerous to stay. His father, known for being stubborn, refused. Their argument was never finished – an Israeli airstrike hit his father’s home, burying his parents beneath the rubble.On Sunday, two days after the ceasefire was announced, Khadr returned to search through the ruins of his parents’ home. He spent the day sifting through shattered concrete and twisted metal for any sign of them. All he managed to find were some shards of their skulls and parts of their hands. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago ‘I’m going to write about all of it’: author Chris Kraus on success, drugs and I Love Dick

A decade after her debut became a cult hit, the US author talks about the true crime that inspired her latest novel, #MeToo overreach and being married to an addictChris Kraus regards the late success of her first book, I Love Dick, with ambivalence. A work of autofiction, first published in 1997, it chronicles Kraus’s infatuation with a cultural theorist named Dick, a doomed, one-sided love affair that nonetheless pulls Kraus, a depressed, 39-year-old failing film-maker languishing in a sexless marriage, out of her personal and artistic rut. After a slow start, the book became a cult classic and in 2016 it was made into an Amazon Prime Video TV series, with Kraus played by Kathryn Hahn. “To me, success would have been like a long review in the New York Review of Books, not being a character on a sitcom,” Kraus says now. Her commercial success was a financial boon, of course. “But who can stand by a book they wrote 20 years ago? It was massively embarrassing to go out and support th...

Events

2 w. ago Overjoyed man finds £2.6m in his bank account – then everything changes

Guilherme Moreira, from Goiânia, Brazil, was overjoyed when he found R$18,666,000 (£2,613,000) in his account one day in 2019 - but it all went wrong after he spent some of it

Economics

2 w. ago Trump says ‘we’re only going to cut Democrat programs’ as Senate again fails to advance stopgap funding bill – live

Trump says federal cuts made while government is shut down will ‘only’ target his opponents’s priorities; Democratic measure fails again on ninth day of shutdownThe president has spent much of Thursday morning thanking his allies on Truth social for praising his diplomatic efforts in Gaza. “I would like to thank Republican Congressman Brian Mast, of Florida, for his brilliant words and analysis on the return of the Hostages, and Peace in the Middle East, this morning on Fox & Friends. Thank you Brian!!!,” Trump wrote in a post. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago The armed robber who went straight: John McAvoy was born into the criminal life. Here’s how he escaped it

His stepfather was a serious criminal. His uncle was one of the Brink’s-Mat heist gang. McAvoy followed them into crime – and into prison. Then one day in the gym he discovered the talent, drive, support and friendship that changed everything John McAvoy sat in a holding cell in Belmarsh prison, waiting to be processed, plotting his escape. It was 2007, he was 24, and he had been arrested for firearms offences and conspiracy to commit robbery. He knew he was facing a long stretch inside, having previously served three years for possession of a firearm. He also knew his only chance of running was through the hospital wing, so had spent the day lying to guards, pretending that he had sustained a concussion during his arrest. When the holding cell doors opened, he figured that’s where he was going. Instead, he was cuffed and led away to a high-security unit (HSU).When McAvoy laid eyes on the unit, the magnitude of his situation hit home. “I thought: ‘I’m not going to see daylight for a...

Events

2 w. ago Details about deaths of parents who died in scalding hot bath revealed in toxicology report

Jeferson Luiz Sagez and Ana Carolina Silva had spent the day before their deaths celebrating their four-year-old daughter's birthday.

Events

2 w. ago Moment cops rescue a distressed hiker who had spent day stranded on Arizona mountain in 105 degree heat

Temperatures reached 105 degrees the day the hiker got lost

Events

3 w. ago Girl, 4, left orphaned after mum and dad die in scalding hot hotel bathtub

Jeferson Luiz Sagaz, 37, and his partner Ana Carolina Silva, 41 had spent the day celebrating their daughter’s birthday at a food park and drinking before heading to a nightclub

Events

3 w. ago Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror review – insiders’ account of cult musical 50 years on

Stars including Richard O’Brien, Susan Sarandon and Tim Curry line up to recount the endearing origin story of the perennial crowdpleaserNot to be confused with the unauthorised, warts-and-all fan history Sane Inside Insanity: The Phenomenon of Rocky Horror, this is an insider’s account all the way, starring the stage-show-turned-cult-film’s writer and co-star Richard O’Brien. Heck, it’s even directed by O’Brien’s son, Linus O’Brien, a fact you couldn’t really miss given interviewees frequently allude cosily to Richard as “your dad”. Given its provenance, it’s no surprise that no one here says, as they do in the rival documentary, that the 1975 film adaptation is a “shitty fucking movie” – but nevertheless there’s honesty on display, mostly about the slapdash origins of the project and the later mistakes made, including the huge flop when the original stage production tried to transfer from Los Angeles to Broadway.But even the most diehard Rocky Horror sceptic would have to concede ...

Events

4 w. ago ‘People seemed deeply insulted’: how cult 90s band Rachel’s took chamber music out of the classical world

The graceful ensemble prefigured the neo-classical phenomenon and found surprising success in the post-Nirvana alt-rock boom. After the deaths of two members, reissuing their debut has proven bittersweetIf you were an American indie rock act in the mid-90s, life could be strange. After the breakthroughs of Nirvana and Green Day the music industry spent several frenzied years trying to refine the formula for rock success. Labels indiscriminately hoovered up guitar bands in the post-grunge glut.But the newfound interest in alternative music also buoyed some unexpected acts. “There were a lot of people looking to independent labels for the next Nirvana,” says Christian Frederickson, violist with the Louisville chamber music act Rachel’s. “While that obviously wasn’t us, I do think we benefited.” Continue reading...

Culture

4 w. ago I visited the UK’s biggest B&M – there were 3 aisles just for candles & the perfect £5 Christmas decoration

A B&M fan who visited the UK's largest store has told how it made for the "perfect day out." Kim Flanders explained how she spent an hour inside the Bournemouth store and was shocked by the Christmas aisles which had every colour theme imaginable and was super impressed by the endless aisles of candles and...

Economics