The new book is populated with individuals seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
