This latest work is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer began 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, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition 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 directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
