🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, 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 murderer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app 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 individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par