This latest work is populated with individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
