The new book is populated with characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with 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 lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
