The new book centers on individuals pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
