The new book features individuals pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point 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 Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
