This latest work centers on characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer began as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard 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 bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated 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 explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
