The new book centers on characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
