The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
