This latest work features characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
