This latest work centers on individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
