The new book features individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
