🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par