The new book centers on characters chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
