This latest work features characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
