The new book is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
