This latest work features characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this appears a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
