🔗 Share this article

The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par