This latest work features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
