This latest work features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, 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 repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
