This latest work features characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses 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 opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
