This latest work is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
