🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par