This latest work centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
