The new book features characters pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
