🔗 Share this article

The new book features protagonists seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par