The new book centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
