This latest work features characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style 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 disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
