This latest work features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer began as an artist 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 continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
