The new book is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
