The new book is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion 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 the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
