This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells 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 destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears 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 the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
