The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
