This latest work centers on characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point 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 fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
