🔗 Share this article

This latest work centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par