This latest work is populated with individuals seeking clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
