This latest work is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
