🔗 Share this article

This latest work is populated with individuals seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par