🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned 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 captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, 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 fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par