🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker 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, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 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 cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing 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 perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par