This latest work centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
