This latest work centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance 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 continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned 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 different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
