The new book features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
