The new book features protagonists seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has 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 appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
