This latest work features individuals seeking clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
