The new book features characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
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 pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
