Books by Chris Kraus
“Kraus, the avant-garde author of I Love Dick, offers a new freewheeling autofiction in which the main character, ‘Catt’ becomes obsessed with a grim real-life murder in northern Minnesota around the time that her own partner relapses into alcoholism. Krause has explained that, while attempting to report the case in a true crime style reminiscent of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood or Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song, she ‘started to realize that it was not possible to write that kind of book anymore.'” Read more...
Cal Flyn, Five Books Editor
“Chris Kraus is a liberator. I didn’t know that I was allowed to write about these elements of my life. She writes about things that we are socialised as women to conceal: failure, abjection, not being hot in the right way, fights, illnesses, disappointments. All taboo. And then she shifts genre and tone so much.” Read more...
Olivia Laing, Memoirist
Interviews where books by Chris Kraus were recommended
The Best of Autofiction, recommended by Olivia Laing
All writers draw from lived experience, but today’s most exciting experimental writers aren’t afraid to mine theirs explicitly. Here, the acclaimed writer and critic Olivia Laing – author of Crudo and The Lonely City – discusses five works of ‘autofiction’ that have influenced her.
The Best Autofiction, recommended by Juliet Jacques
Autofiction is writing that blurs the boundaries between autobiography and fiction. The writer of Trans: A Memoir, Juliet Jacques, picks her top five examples of the genre.
Notable Novels of Fall 2025, recommended by Cal Flyn
Fall 2025 is an exciting season for new novels, says Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn. Here, she selects her autumnal highlights including autofictional work from Patricia Lockwood and Chris Kraus, plus a literary detective story set in an apocalyptic future from the “old master,” Ian McEwan.
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1
What We Can Know: A Novel
by Ian McEwan -
2
We Do Not Part
by Han Kang, translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris -
3
Flashlight: A Novel
by Susan Choi -
4
The Life of Violet
by Virginia Woolf -
5
Dream Count
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -
6
Heart Lamp: Selected Stories
by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi
New Literary Fiction
New Literary Fiction
Keep up to date with the best new releases in literary fiction here on Five Books. Our deputy editor, Cal Flyn, an award-winning author herself, writes seasonal round-ups of the best new novels from ‘literary’ writers: from buzzed-about debuts to critics’ darlings, new work from the globally recognised greats and beloved sleeper hits from writers’ writers. We love it all here at Five Books.
