The new book is populated with protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this appears a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
