This latest work centers on characters seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named 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 in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
