🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with 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 locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par