🔗 Share this article

This latest work is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par