The new book is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
