The new book is populated with characters seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
