The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. And yet, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, 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
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
