🔗 Share this article

This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par