The new book centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
