🔗 Share this article

This latest work features characters seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this appears a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par