🔗 Share this article

This latest work is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par