This latest work features individuals seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. 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 appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
