The new book centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units 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 Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
