This latest work features characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates 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 hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
