🔗 Share this article

This latest work features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes 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 wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par