This latest work centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
