The new book is populated with individuals seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. 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 murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
