The new book centers on characters pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
