This latest work is populated with characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
