The new book centers on individuals seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally 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 defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
