This latest work features protagonists chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named 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 having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
