🔗 Share this article

This latest work is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this appears a different type of work – observational, truly literary. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, 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. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par