This latest work centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
