This latest work features individuals pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
