🔗 Share this article

This latest work centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates 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 destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting 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 becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par