The new book centers on protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this presents as a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice 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 makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named 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 in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
