This latest work features protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice 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 significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, 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. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
