🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par