🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par