🔗 Share this article

The new book centers on protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten 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 second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, 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 delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par