🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par