The new book features individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy 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 killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
