This latest work is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
