This latest work is populated with individuals seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
