The new book centers on characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
