The new book centers on protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states 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 social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
