The new book centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
