🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the killer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par