🔗 Share this article

This latest work features individuals pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par