🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

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

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy 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 shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par