This latest work is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
