This latest work features characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter 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 shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
