This latest work is populated with characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
