🔗 Share this article

This latest work features characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see 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, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par