This latest work centers on characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found 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 interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
