🔗 Share this article

The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with 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 complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par