The new book is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
