This latest work is populated with individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents 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 murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
