🔗 Share this article

The new book features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par