🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par